


Old Habits Die Hard

by Madmonarchy



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: AU, Angst, Blood, Evil! Mercy, Gen, I'm Going to Hell, Like holy hell this is a serious frickin AU what have I done, Talon!Genji, Talon!Mcree, kinda i mean alot's different, mentions of gore, reverse!au - Freeform, the name is probably going to change at some point, there's going to be so many tags I honestly don't know what I'm doing, y'all gonna hate me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-08-22 01:07:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8267102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madmonarchy/pseuds/Madmonarchy
Summary: AU where Amelie never become Widow, Gabriel never becomes Reaper. Jack and Jesse “died” at the explosion. Neither Hanzo nor Genji make it out of their fight unscathed, but Hanzo is saved by Overwatch and Genji is saved by Talon. Winston is dead and life for Lena is hard as a result. Mercy is a double agent.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Rating for for language  
> EDIT: I keep editing this because I constantly realize how many mistakes there are. That's what happens when you decide to write a fic at 3 in the morning. Sorry about that.

Amelie sighed. It was the kind of long, deep sigh that came from someone who hadn’t seen a bed in days. She pulled her coat tighter around her, staring out the window that Gabriel leaned against. She had a chill that raised the goosebumps on her flesh, not from the recycled air of the transport but from a quiet fear that settled in her. Her fingers toyed with the buttons on her front, a few specks of blood on it but otherwise clean. She hated that she was good at what she did.

She hated even more however, how quiet Gabriel was.

“You saw him, didn’t you?”

Reyes gave a shrug that feigned indifference, as if he didn’t care in the slightest. The trembling in his hands gave him away though, the way he crushed the second unlit cigar between his thick fingers and his lip curled in a snarl and dropped it on the metal floor beside the first one, giving up entirely on smoking. “So what if I did?”

  
“He’s alive Gabriel. And you have nothing to say? You buried him yourself.”

  
“I buried a casket, never saw the body. _Mercy_ ,” he spat the name, “never let me see him…said there was barely enough to identify him, fuck, I shouldn’t have listened to her.”

  
When the explosion at HQ happened years ago, Gabriel was one of the few to make it out alive and lucky enough to get out mostly unscathed. He didn’t think the fighting between him and Jack would get so bad. It was bad enough they didn’t even notice the first explosion at the far end of the base, they’d been too busy exchanging blows and bloodying each other to pay attention to anything else. Jack screaming about Blackwatch getting out of control, Gabriel screaming about Jack’s power getting to his head. Punch, kick, **boom**. Jack got flung across the room and engulfed in debris. An hour later Gabriel was getting dragged out by Angela.

  
Jesse got caught in the middle of it. He had heard the fighting and come running, at least, that’s what Gabriel had figured. Mcree was always so quick to jump into his and Jack’s arguments. The last memory Gabriel had of Jesse was more a blur, a door opening and the sight of a cowboy hat in his peripheral. He always did tell him that butting in all the time was going to be the death of Jesse.

  
After the explosion, there was the funeral where he and a few other agents buried their friends and comrades. Fareeha had been there. He remembered Lena crying over Winston’s oversized casket, his body had at least been recovered. Amelie’s husband had been missing for a while at that point so she was there to lend an empathetic shoulder to cry on. Everyone was crying and talking solemnly while Gabriel kept mostly to himself. He had to speak on behalf of the dead as the now acting Commander of Overwatch and it made his stomach churn. It was a shit promotion. The press was all over him about the explosion and what could’ve caused it. It didn’t help that his eyes kept wandering over to two particular caskets.

  
On top of Jack’s casket was the customary folded American flag. At the other end of the lid was the Overwatch symbol, engraved in gleaming steel. Gabriel stared long and hard at it. Closed casket, out of respect they said. They lied to the press, saying his body wasn’t in any state to show to the public. There wasn’t a body in there. They never found it. There were a lot of bodies they never found. Shit like that happened in disasters.

  
The other casket though was blank. No name, they couldn’t identify the body, just an unnamed soldier. Another lie. The remains in there belonged to one Jesse Mcree, not Overwatch, but Blackwatch. Had to be unnamed because Blackwatch didn’t exist. His casket wasn’t the only unnamed one. Gabe’s mouth ran dry every time he looked over at it. He wished he hadn’t brought Mcree along with him to the Swiss HQ that day. He’d still be here…

  
A month after the funeral, people were calling for Commander Gabriel’s head and everyone else’s who was still alive in Overwatch. Blackwatch had been exposed. Secrets had been spilled. Overwatch was disbanded and all members who were involved with Blackwatch, including Commander Reyes himself, were to be arrested and all resisting arrest were to be killed on sight.

  
A month and a week after the mass funeral, Gabriel Reyes faked his death along with a handful of other agents. Amelie joined him because she felt that Gerard’s disappearance had to tie into all this. Lena didn’t fake her death but quietly helps out when she can, to honor the fallen. The public still thought of her as a hero, hiding wasn't necessary for her. They’d managed to covertly recover some of Winston’s work as well, in the case something where to happen to her accelerator, not that any of them were exactly scientists. Fareeha always dreamed of being part of Overwatch. She left her position at Helix and essentially dropped off the grid, stealing the Raptora suit and effectively making herself a wanted criminal, in order to help Gabriel find out what happened. Gabriel didn’t bother trying to contact Reinhardt. Let the old man have his peace, he’d told everyone, Reinhardt was too proud to sit back and do covert missions anyway. Torbjorn was a much needed help, without his technical prowess they wouldn’t have been able to operate with the level of efficiency they currently do. Hanzo had gone away on his own before Overwatch fell, traveling the world on a journey of some kind. 

  
Angela disappeared sometime later, never joining them and never showing up anywhere else…ever. He tried to contact to her but she was always out of reach. Hiding somewhere. It rubbed him wrong from the beginning.

  
Gabriel practically growled now as their transport continued on down the road to their current base of operations. Jesse’s eyes were burned in his mind. They were cybernetic. He’d lost his eyes in the explosion, judging from the scarring on his face. Angela had lied, the rest of his body seemed mostly intact. _There was a body._

  
“Do you think there’s a chance…” Amelie’s voice brought him back to the present.

  
“A chance?” He already knew the question. He just wanted to hear her say it because he’d be lying if he wasn’t thinking the same thing.

  
“That Angela lied about Morrison too?” She continued, her hands laid on top of her sniper rifle. She’d been cleaning it while he was reminiscing.

  
“Don’t see why not. She told me Mcree was nothing more than meat when she found him but he seemed pretty intact while pointing that damned revolver at me.” Gabriel's brow twitched, thinking about how just two hours ago he’d been staring down the barrel of Peacekeeper, Jesse’s glowing eyes locked on him. He still wore the fucking hat and it had the damn Blackwatch symbol on it. Like he was _mocking_ him.

  
He and Amelie had caught wind of a possible lead on where Mercy had been last. Instead they’d been met with fucking Talon mercenaries, of all the groups to be part of this mess it had to be them. Mcree had been among them and it had been the first time in a long time Gabriel had felt fear. Jesse Mcree was alive and in front of him and Gabriel was positive he was going to have nightmares about the way the son of a bitch orchestrated the fight. He barked orders like a natural, the only reason Gabriel and Amelie had gotten out alive was because Amelie had shot a bullet straight through Mcree’s shoulder at the same time Gabriel launched a smoke bomb into . The short window this gave them was just enough for Gabriel to grab Amelie and jump out of a third story window, which his knees were definitely feeling right now, and barrel into the back of their transport. The truck was rigged by Torbjorn to go into autopilot with a quick scan. In front the windows were blacked out because it’d for sure freak some people out to see a driver-less car.

  
Amelie got out unharmed, a few specks of blood had landed on her where someone had gotten just a little too close to her perch. Gabriel had a bandage over his bicep where he’d taken a bullet. SEP training had made it possible to take hits and keep moving. Didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like a bitch. His cheek had a bump that was starting to bruise from where he’d taken the butt of a certain revolver to the face.

  
He had shotguns, he could have killed him at such a short range. That was the first time Gabriel ever hesitated pulling the trigger.

His fingers ghosted over the bump and he winced.

“Angela and Talon…what do you know? The only halo she wore was the one held up by her horns…” Gabriel leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes.  


  
They continued the ride in silence.

……………….  
“Fuck!” Mcree cursed as he kicked a box, then cursed again when pain shot through his foot.

  
Genji watched him from where he was seated on another nearby box. He knew that anytime Mcree messed up or got angry he came to the storage room to vent his frustrations where he could be alone, or as alone as the cyborg would allow him. That usually meant a lot of kicking and screaming until he finally calmed down enough that he can finally say something other than “Fuck.” 

  
“You were sloppy.” Genji chimed with a tilt of his head. His light brown eyes practically twinkled and Mcree wanted to punch the lights of him.

  
“Fuck off Genji.” Jesse spat back. Gabriel fucking Reyes was alive and Mcree was pissed off. He was supposed to be dead, assassinated or some shit. Of course he played like he knew it, just to throw him off. The team Jesse had been sent with had been unnecessary, it was just supposed to a simple retrieval mission. He didn't expect to run into Reyes, since he was supposed to be y'know, dead. Amelie, also infuriatingly alive, had picked off his agents while he fought Gabriel. What a fucking mess. He barely lodged a shot in the asshole's arm before he'd gotten a neat bullet shaped hole in it that won’t be patched until Mercy gets back from whatever mission she was on. The package he picked up for the higher ups better have been worth it. He wasn’t even allowed to know what he was picking up. Above his pay grade and all. It reminded him of when Reyes would say it and it gave him a twitch in his eye. 

  
When Commander Reyes had been announced dead, Mcree was sour he hadn’t gotten to do it himself, but eventually shrugged it off. Good riddance and all that. The whole reason he joined Talon was to get the chance to off the asshole. He stayed because he owed Mercy. It’d been a hell of a shock finding out that Angela had been in league with the mercenary group with whole time but without her he’d be blind or dead in a ditch most likely. She saved him, not Gabriel.

  
Genji hopped off his seat, landing with one prosthetic foot and one human. He stretched lazily, as though he were bored by Mcree. In truth he was just trying to annoy the gunslinger further. He ran a hand through his dark hair and yawned. “Honestly Jesse, you jest all the time about how you wished you were the one to…what was it you’d say… ah ‘pop him in the head’ but the moment you had the chance, you froze.” A small smirk played on his lips.

  
“Yeah, because you’d still be all cool headed if your dead brother suddenly showed his head when he’s supposed to be six feet under!” Jesse snapped at Genji, knowing full-well how low of a blow it was. Genji’s brother was always a sore topic, the Shimada in general were. Talon’s had a few dealings with them in order to gain international hold and Genji was never tenser than when he’d be sent on mission’s dealing with his family, being the only person in the whole organization that spoke Japanese. He wore his visor to hide his identity and as a shield. Not that he dealt with them much anymore, with how many died as a result of Overwatch. Bringing up his brother was essentially asking for a fight. And maybe that’s exactly what Mcree was going for. 

  
The thing was, Mcree was well aware that Hanzo was alive and that Hanzo was responsible for the ops against the Shimadas. Angela had saved both brothers after their fight, the two of them having horribly disfigured each other, she kept one for Overwatch and one for Talon. The gunslinger had an inkling that she did it mainly to watch the chaos ensue when the two of them eventually reunite, whenever that'll be. Hanzo being alive was classified information, Mercy explicitly told Mccree he wasn't to say a peep about it to Genji. That didn't mean he wasn't allowed to bring the supposedly dead brother up at all.

  
The glare Mcree recieved was sharp and a clear warning. “Mcree,” Genji took a step forward, placing his prosthetic hands on Mcree's chest plate, “you know better than to speak of him to me. I understand that you’re angry," his grin did little to take away the glint of his eyes, “but please refrain from such stupid decisions in the future.” With that, Genji gave Mcree a shove, hard enough to let the cowboy know this isn’t a fight he’d win.

  
Mcree huffed and rolled his shoulders, wincing when the motion jostled the wounded one. “Whatever…” He gave Genji a once over, the majority of the anger in him gone. Even that little rise he got out of the cyborg was enough to lift his spirits. He cracked a wide grin. “Think anyone’s told _him_ yet? About Gabriel?”

  
Their little quarrel over, Genji crossed his arms, brows raised in confusion. “Hmm?”

  
Jesse Mcree kept smiling, now realizing the reunion of the century is upon them. “Y’know, _him_!” He grabbed Genji by the shoulders and gave him an excited shake which earned him an eye roll. 

  
“For fuck’s sake Genji! Jack fucking Morrison!”


	2. Chapter 2

Jesse waited patiently outside of the infirmary in the Talon base. As patiently as one could be, knowing the former commander of Overwatch was alive and walking. He had a sleepless night, just bouts of tossing and turning before giving up and staring at his ceiling for hours. Angela had to know something and he was determined to find out what. If she hadn’t been on radio silence he would have bombarded her communicator with messages.

The soft clicking of heels down the hall made Jesse tip his hat in greeting. “Angela.”

Angela looked up from her clipboard, smiled for a brief second then narrowed her eyes, “What happened this time?”

Jesse shrugged, then winced. “Oh y’know, a mission that went belly up,” he followed her into the infirmary and sat on one the beds. He unbuttoned his shirt and took it off so she could take a look at his shoulder.

“How so?”

He flinched when he felt her cold hands on his skin as she removed the bandage. She made a noise of disapproval at how the wound was dressed, muttering something a possible infection. “Oh they didn’t tell you yet doc? The retrieval mission I was sent on, I ran into a ghost.”

Her fingers continued their work deftly, removing the last bits of gauze and wiping away the dried blood. Jesse shifted, trying to make out even the smallest change in her face. “What do you mean a ghost?” She reached into a drawer and pulled out a caduceus pen, just a miniature version of her staff she used for small work, like bullet holes.

The beam of the pen felt incredibly cold and numbed his shoulder instantly. He leveled his gaze at her. “Gabriel Reyes. He’s alive.” He leaned back as she finished healing his shoulder, a pale scar left in the wound’s place. “And Amelie Lacroix.”

Angela’s eyes widened, her lips pressed thin. “They’re alive? But they were…weren’t they assassinated?”

“I always thought that was a Talon job, never bothered to ask, no one said anything, _you_ never said anything.”

She stood, quiet and contemplative. The look she gave him was enough to send a shiver up his spine. Pissing off Mercy was a bad idea. “What are you implying Jesse?”

“All I’m saying is, you’re good at hiding bodies.” He got to his feet, using his height as an advantage, “who’s to say you didn’t hide a few more?” He pulled his shirt back on, a slow process with how numb his arm felt, and kept eye contact with her the whole time as he buttoned it back up.

Her face was a blank slate, then she laughed, a good full body laugh. It scared Jesse shitless. “You think I went out of my way to help _Gabriel Reyes_ fake his death?” She pushed his arm playfully. “And Amelie?” She composed herself, playing with a stray hair coming out of her ponytail. “Oh Jesse, I suppose I did forget to tell you, it was so long ago…” She trailed off and started to rummage around in her drawers.

“Tell me what?” He moved closer to her to look her over shoulder before she turned around and pushed a folder into his hands. He opened it and started skimming through the contents.

“You were so angry those first few months. Gabriel having abandoned you after the explosion and your eyes.” Her eyes were somber. “You kept saying how badly you wanted him dead. And well…” She gestured to the file.

“This is…” Jesse trailed off. He held the beginnings of a plan to take out Reyes. His name showed up on the list of operatives. “I was supposed to be part of this.” There’d been plans in the past to go after smaller Overwatch agents. He was a part of a few of them, it was busy work to him. The big important ones, like Lena and Reinhardt, he wasn't allowed to personally attend missions to go after. He didn't care much, leave that to Jack, didn't matter to him whether they lived or died. 

Angela nodded. “The eyes I made you were going to be finished before then. I filed the request for you to be on the operation myself. But then…well you know what happened.” She plucked the file from Jesse’s hands and dropped it back into the drawer, shutting it. “To think he staged an assassination, I gave him less credit than he deserved.”

Jesse Mcree felt like the biggest asshole to ever exist. “Shit.” He took his hat off and lowered his head. “I so damn sorry Angela.”

Angela offered him a tiny smile. “It’s okay Jesse.” She rested her hand on his arm and gave a gentle squeeze. “I suppose anyone would be suspicious. However,” she pulled her hand away and her voice took on an icy tone, “do not ever accuse me of anything ever again. Remember who you owe your eyes to, your _life_.”

He nodded and placed his hat back on his head. Angela was no longer paying attention to him as he left the room. Jesse placed his back against the wall exhaled, he hadn’t realized he was holding his breath. Mercy was a terrifying woman, she belonged in Talon for sure. It bugged him that he never caught on back in his Blackwatch days.

There was movement in the corner of his eye, someone hiding up in the mess of pipes and wirings above him. He laughed. Genji needed to learn that unless he blinded him, there was no sneaking around him. His eyes were too good. He could pick up the tiniest movements, allowing him to lock on to targets from distances that would make Amari jealous. If she were still alive. “I know you’re there Genji. You can come on out.”

Genji dropped down, silent and with a smug smile on his face. “Glad to see you made it out alive Jesse. I’m surprised, though.” He crossed his arms and tilted his head.

“What’s so surprising?” Jesse mirrored Genji’s stance, frowning slightly. He knew the little shit was messing with him, as he always did.

“That Angela didn’t tear you a new one. I’ve never known her to be so _merciful._ ” He laughed at his own joke and Jesse rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, it’s not like she didn’t save your body and my eyes out of the good of her heart.” She probably didn’t, it must’ve been an order from Talon. That was another thing he never asked about. He really needed to start asking questions. Starting with, “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you. Or rather, telling you that someone else is looking for you.” Genji turned around and started walking away. He looked over his shoulder, expecting his friend to follow.

“Who?” Jesse sauntered after him. Who the hell would look for him besides Genji or Angela? People knew that unless it was important, he preferred to be alone, if having Genji around all the time could be considered alone.

They turned a corner into the common room and Jesse froze immediately. Genji stood beside him, a grin on his face that Jesse briefly considered slapping him. “ _Him_.”

There stood Jack Morrison, chatting idly with another agent but Jesse could clearly see the tension in his crossed arms. Jack had been off on his own for weeks, trying to figure out where Tracer had disappeared to as she’s been off the map, unlike her. It was Jack’s job to keep track of former Overwatch operatives. Jesse never bothered him, his work was important and he preferred to stay out of his way. They barely spoke anyway, weren’t the biggest fans of each other. Blackwatch and Overwatch didn’t get along in the past, tensions still held.

The day before, Jesse was excited at the idea of someone telling Jack about his old best friend. Someone that wasn’t him.

As soon as Jack turned, he saw Jesse and headed toward him. The cowboy wanted to run but Genji held him in place with a hand on his back. He leaned up on his toes and whispered, “Good luck” before disappearing and Jack was face to face with Jesse.

“Mcree, you wanna tell me why the hell everyone keeps saying Gabriel Reyes is alive?” Jack practically growled the words. There were eyes on them, the other agents stilled around them, either expecting a fight or an argument. Assholes can’t keep their mouths shut. How they kept it from Mercy and not Jack astounded him.

“Maybe we should talk somewhere privately, got a lot of nosy people around here.” Jesse looked past Jack, fixing a glare on all the agents in the room. They promptly returned to what they were doing, occasionally throwing glances in his direction.

Jack grunted in agreement and pushed past Jesse. They walked in an uncomfortable silence before the soldier shoved Jesse into his room and slammed the door behind them. “Now do you want to tell me?” Jack’s face, the majority of it synthetic skin courtesy of Mercy, was a mask of pure anger. “How the fuck is he alive?”

Jesse sucked in a breath. “Faked his death, kinda like us.” He kept his tone neutral because Jesse didn’t know much more than anyone else. All they knew was that Gabriel was alive and kicking. “Amelie’s alive too, shot me in the shoulder.”

The former strike commander dragged his hand down his face, taking a deep breath. “Does Mercy know about this?” He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Just told her. I kinda…accused her of helping him fake his death.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “You’re either brave as shit, or dumb as hell.” He sighed. “But I don’t blame you for thinking of that.” His face was pensive for a moment, mulling things over.

Jesse wasn’t sure what to say and shifted from foot to foot. “Any luck finding Lena?”

“No. Now that I think about it she’s had a habit of disappearing on and off again for years. She’s probably working with Gabriel. Fuck, I wonder how much shit slipped past me because of that asshole.” Jack looked up at Jesse. “You can go now; I’ve got work to do.”

Jesse’s sure he’s never left a room so fast before in his life. He wasn’t scared of Jack or anything, but the man just got under his skin. He was cold and old age made him harsh. Jesse was also sure that having offed a few members of Overwatch had caused him to go numb. Jesse never had a problem with it, the majority the people he used to work with were right here in Talon and the majority of people in Overwatch distrusted those in Blackwatch, so putting a bullet in someone who considered him a low life wasn’t hard. Jack became hard, distant, and almost unpleasant to be around. But, Jesse figured, if the organization he worked so hard to build and maintain crumbled underneath his feet, he’d be bitter about it too.

He wandered for a little bit before finding a quiet balcony to himself. He felt stressed out after the two confrontations and it wasn’t even past 12pm yet. He sighed, if there was ever a time he regretted quitting smoking, it was now. _Anything for you_ , he remembered telling Angela before stubbing out his final cigarillo. Worst decision ever. Jesse ground his teeth, bad habit. He needed to stop letting her have so much control over him.

“You look tense.”

Genji perched himself on the railing beside him, a lollipop in his mouth. Sometimes Jesse swore Genji could just sense where the cowboy was at all times. Especially when Jesse wanted to be alone. “That ain’t nothing new bud. Hard to be relaxed ‘round here.” Jesse’s eyes zeroed in on the candy in Genji’s mouth and the unwrapped one in his hand. “You know Angela will kill you if she sees you eating that.”

Genji dangled the unwrapped one in front of him, teasing. “You don’t want the other one then?”

It wasn’t a smoke, but it was something. Jesse took it and tossed the wrapper over the balcony railing. “Don’t say a word,” he said as he popped it into his mouth.

“My lips are sealed.”

…………

Lena’s hands tapped the edges of her chronal accelerator. It’s been flickering lately and she’s noticed her own form shifting slightly in time. Not full on disappearing but just enough that she was worried. Without Winston there wasn’t much she could do. She learned how to tune it up from Winston’s notes and run diagnostics but recently, that hasn’t been enough. The broken Overwatch she now worked with did all they could to help her out and she was so grateful but she couldn’t be here all the time. Lena had appearances to hold up, dropping off the grid for weeks at a time made people suspicious. Hero or not, no one trusts former Overwatch members, not even Tracer, all good natured and bubbly. To some, all of the former operatives were corrupt in one way or another.

When Amelie approached her, Lena was lost in her thoughts and was startled. “Oh! Hey there Amelie!” She put up her best cheery expression, though she was feeling anything but.

“Did I startle you? Forgive me.” Amelie took the seat next to Lena, giving her a warm smile. “Thinking a lot?”

“Oh…yeah, it’s not every day you learn that your dead friends actually aren’t dead and are working with Talon.” That wasn’t what she was thinking about, but that didn’t mean it didn’t bother her. She hardly believed Gabriel when he told everyone. It stung to think about, and hurt even worse knowing that Mercy had saved Jesse, and possibly Jack Morrison, but not Winston. She probably didn’t even try.

“It’s…unsettling.” Amelie drew her knees up to her chest, resting her cheek on them. She looked exhausted. “I still cannot believe that Angela had lied. I wonder if she knew something about…” She had a habit of trailing off her sentences when tired, her accent was soft with the need to sleep even though she’d already been back for a day.

“Gerard?”

“Oui.”

There was always the possibly that it’d been Talon who had kidnapped Gerard. He was the lead operative against them, he led the efforts to thwart them. Talon must’ve gotten tired of it after a while, decided he needed to be dealt with. They never did find a body, so Amelie kept the hope that he was still out there somewhere. Maybe he was waiting for her.

“I wish they’d taken me instead.”

Lena gasped. “Amelie don’t say that! We don’t know what they’ve done to him! Why would you want that?”

Amelie laughed in spite of herself, “Because, maybe then Overwatch would still be around. He was the one who went after Talon. Talon came from Blackwatch, he always said that something was wrong with it, that something was off, that Gabriel didn’t have control of everything and just when he thought he was on the trail of something, he’s gone.” She placed her face in her hands and let out a shuddering sigh. 

“Oh,” Lena placed a hand on her shoulder, gave a gentle squeeze. “Maybe he is still out there, I mean, if Jesse’s alive then maybe Gerard is too.”

“Mm, maybe.”

A small cough behind them alerted them to Gabriel’s presence behind them. “If you two are done,” he’d clearly heard the little bit about Blackwatch and Amelie flushed, “we’re having a meeting.” He turned around and left.

“Yikes.” Lena whispered and got up with Amelie to walk to their makeshift meeting room, which was nothing more than a room with a folding table and chairs. The building they currently resided in was just an abandoned house not too far from King’s Row. Gabriel chose it because there weren’t many places for them to hide in the US, and it was more convenient for Lena.

Fareeha, Torbjorn, and Gabriel were already in the room waiting for the two of them. They sheepishly took their seats and Gabriel began. “We know in the past there’s been instances of Talon taking out our former cooperatives. We weren’t sure how they were tracking them down, but now we have an idea, but we also have a new problem.” He swallowed, clearly uncomfortable with what he was going to say next, “Jesse’s alive and I can’t think of anyone else, besides Jack,” his jaw clenched,” who could track people down with the amount of discretion they do. We should be safe here for now, but there’s no chance that Talon isn’t already actively looking for us now.”

“So what do we do? They can’t know we’re here yet. You made sure you weren’t followed,” Fareeha said, tapping her fingers on the table. “And we still have to find Mercy, she couldn’t have known you were alive, and yet it was because of her trail that you ran into Jesse, and we don’t even know what they were doing there to begin with. Something is off.”

“There’s an unknown factor here, is what you’re saying” Torbjorn said, leaning back and crossing his arms. “Someone knew that Jesse was going to be there and wanted to lead us to them.”

“Wouldn’t that mean that someone already knew you were alive though?” Lena interjected, looking at Gabriel. Amelie placed her hands on the table, “Well, Jesse seemed rather confident when we saw him, no?”

“No.” Gabriel said, giving them all a level gaze. “If I know Mcree, I know that he’s a great actor, he had no idea that we’d be there, let alone alive. He was after something else.” The real reason Talon was showed up was a worry for another day. “I think you two are right, something else is at work here. Some unknown.” He cracked his knuckles in thought for a moment. “There is one thing. It’s not the first time we’ve gotten anonymous tips from some outside source.” It was a notion that crossed their minds in the past, a little note slipped here and there to Lena, being the most accessible of the group, twice to Fareeha, who no one should at least in King’s Row should know about, and once to Amelie, a terrifying thought as she’s supposed to be dead.

“Talon has a mole,” Amelie said, voicing everyone’s thoughts.

Gabriel ran a hand through his curls, he needed a haircut. “From this point on, our main focus is finding Mercy and finding out who our _friend_ is, no splitting our attention. Lena,” Lena straightened up at the sound of her name, “I’m going to need you to lie low, no heroics or anything. The last thing we need is for you to attract Talon’s attention and get yourself killed.” Lena nodded. She wasn’t exactly fond of the idea of hiding for longer than she had to, but orders were orders.

With that, Gabriel concluded their meeting and Lena went off to her little rundown room. It had an air mattress on the floor and was bare of any real belongings other than her suitcase and a few pictures that she kept with her on her travels. She had an apartment in King’s Row, where she’d been working hard to try and keep the peace between omnics and humans, but with her chronal accelerator acting up, it’s hard to be there all the time with her team being the only ones who could help her. She knew next week she should be seen on the streets, helping people and checking on the omnics underground, making sure everything was okay, despite Gabriel’s orders.

Lena collapsed on her air mattress, feeling rundown even though she hadn’t done much of anything today. All the new knowledge thrust upon her was just more weight to carry. She thought about Amelie, how she must feel knowing that there’s a chance her husband is still out there. That undying hope she’s had since the year he went missing. Her thoughts then wander to Gabe, how he must feel with this mess. Jesse was alive, maybe Jack too. Gabriel’s expression when he spoke of them haunted her. What about Ana? Was her death just a ploy by Talon and Mercy? How many more were alive?

She sighed, squeezing her eyes shut when the device on her chest flickered. “Oh Winston, why couldn’t you be alive too?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I'm currently working on chapter 3 and I have a beta reader now so I won't have to edit the chapter when it's up nearly as much. Any questions go ahead and sent them to my tumblr idontcareanymorethisisshit.tumblr.com


	3. Chapter 3

The weight of a rifle rested heavily in Jack’s hands. It felt familiar, blasting down targets. It allowed him to forget that he was in a Talon base, working to kill off his former subordinates. The pulses from his gun felt like nothing, no recoil, just a continuous spray of energy. Target after target fell, a loud clang resounding with each fallen bot. So familiar, so different, like a far off memory he remembered wrong.

It was just one of those days. He’d had nightmares about the explosion again. The agony of his skin being burned. His screaming as hands, far from gentle, pulled his charred body from the debris. Angela’s soothing voice telling everything would be okay. Nothing was okay. So many people died. He should’ve died. Gabriel should’ve died. Either in the explosion or later on. 

He wasn’t sure what hurt more, the burns, or the fact that his life’s work, Overwatch, had been a lie. It was all a lie. Talon had snuck its way into Overwatch, Talon came from Blackwatch, Blackwatch was out of his control. Gabriel tried to confront him in the Swiss HQ, trying to tell _him_ that Overwatch was out of control. Blackwatch was the dirty one, not Overwatch. Everything was wrong. He was just trying to take it all from him. He knew Reyes was mad about the promotion, that was the whole reason they drifted apart in the first place. The explosion was the result of Talon, he knew that, accepted it now. The UN just used him as a poster boy. He realized that they just told him what orders to give. None of it was his choice. So he made a choice. Talon wanted power, and he decided to help them get it. He couldn’t beat Talon, after the explosion, when Mercy revealed her true allegiances, it was evident. 

He remembered how angry he’d been at Gabriel. Gabriel fucking Reyes. He watched the funeral, staring at Gabriel’s unharmed body, nothing but scratches while he was still in and out of surgeries. The gut churning feeling as they called him “Commander Reyes”; the son of a bitch probably celebrated. Jack rejoiced when Gabriel was announced dead, the body never showed on television besides in a body bag. That was enough for him.

Except he wasn’t dead.

Jack fired three helix rockets at the targets, effectively exploding all of them before laying the gun on the counter. He ran a hand down his face in exhaustion. He hasn’t slept properly since he heard his old partner was still alive. He knew Mcree wasn’t exactly taking it easy either, but he and Mcree weren’t friends. Mercy didn’t know anything. That bugged him, she usually knew everything. 

How had this slipped by him for so long? Were the signs there and he never looked long enough to really see? Lena disappearing on and off, the occasional sabotage of a few operations he assigned, the bits of heroic acts taking place by anonymous heroes. He’d written them off as failures, people acting as vigilantes, his own incompetence. But no, it was just Gabriel, still ruining him in death. 

The data pad strapped to his hip beeped. With a sigh, he grabbed it and turned on the screen, thinking it was a message but instead found a notification from one of his informants. Lena was back on the radar. The first bit of good news he’d heard since last week. It gave him an idea.

Tracer was a hero, known well by people all across the world. He held off on sending people after her for a time because of the state of the world. Too much chaos at once would draw attention Talon’s way and that was the last thing he wanted. But now, things were quiet and tense. Omnics and humans were walking a shaky bridge together. All it takes is one wrong footstep and everything will go downhill. People were fighting for peace; some were screaming for war. Lena was a peacekeeper. 

It seemed so simple. Talon had already sent out an agent to King’s Row, to assassinate an omnic monk. Why not kill two birds with one stone? Or one bullet. The assassin they had on hand was capable of it for sure. He could finally cross her off the list. Who knows? Might flush Gabriel out too. 

He began tapping out a message to the higher ups, a request to add another target to their assassin’s list. He hated having to get things approved, had to do it in Overwatch, still had to do it here. Mercy could probably approve it; she held a high enough standing that it would probably be fine. She’d probably do it in passing, just as an afterthought. He wasn’t even sure if she’d be interested in Lena’s assassination. 

His fingers stilled before hitting send. Something gnawed at him. Lena was just so damn… _pure_. She was too good. The kid never got caught up in the corruption. All she wanted to do was help people. She saw good in everything. There was always a bright side, so damn cheery even when everything went to hell. The idea that she would be gone, one of the few bright spots in a world that was so dark, it stung a little. 

But Jack was good too once. He was a hero. People looked up to him. Children wanted to grow up to be him. A role model. A figure head. A puppet. He wanted to help people, give them hope. Look where it got him. Nowhere. He ended up nearly dead with skin that wasn’t even his. None of what he thought he had was his. He was an old man with crushed dreams of a future that never came.

He hit send. He was doing the kid a favor. She didn’t need to see how ugly the world was going to get. Her optimism would run out eventually. Better to end her now so she’ll never have to think, ‘what if?’. 

He left the practice range, putting the gun away in the armory. His insides felt hollow. He wandered like a ghost inside of the Talon base for a time, letting his feet carry him where they would. Despite having lived here for years now, these metal walls never warmed up to him. They were never friendly, not a place he looked forward to coming home to. The people weren’t warm and friendly with him. Some of them still saw Strike Commander Morrison, now grizzled with white hair and skin that was too smooth for someone his age. It was fine. He wasn’t interested in making friends. 

He could’ve become better acquainted with Mcree at least. To have someone to joke with. But he couldn’t. They didn’t trust each. Still carried the bias of Blackwatch and Overwatch in both of them. And every time he looked at Mcree, he swore he saw a bit of Reyes in there, somewhere. Besides, Mcree was friends with that Shimada heir, Genji. Jack preferred not to be around him if he could, made him think of Hanzo, the politer, older brother, who, according to Genji, was supposed to be dead. That was a reoccurring trend he noticed, dead bodies just walking around when they weren’t supposed to.

He straightened up when he entered Mercy’s office, she didn’t have any patients or missions today so this was where she’d be spending her time. Her eyes flicked up from her paperwork to him as her door slid open. 

“Jack,” she said, “do you need something?” She looked him over from head to toe, trying to see if he had some sort of ailment. He never visited her.

“I put the hit out on Lena.” He said, casually leaning against the door frame. 

“Hmm”, she said in response, going back to the papers on her desk. “I always did wonder what took you so long. She seemed like an easy enough target.” Her voice gave away no compassion, like she never cared for Lena at all. He wondered exactly how much of her kindness in Overwatch was an act.

He stepped further into her office, shrugging. “Never seemed like the right time. There wouldn’t have been much to gain from her death other than crossing another name off the list.” He kept his tone easy going. “Now’s the best opportunity, we got that assassin out in King’s Row already, Lena’s back on the streets, and seeing as Gabriel’s alive,” he dug his fingernails into his palm as he said it,” what better way to draw him out?”

A brief pause. “It’s eating at you, isn’t it?” She clicked her tongue on the inside of her cheek, as if annoyed at a child rather than a super soldier well beyond her in years. “The idea of killing Tracer.”

Jack deadpanned. He hated that about her. How easy it was for her to see through him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Jack, please. You don’t have to put up this charade with me.” She stood up from her desk, abandoning her paper work to stand in front of him, arms crossed and looking down on him from the bridge of her nose, despite him having more than a few inches on her. “You still have that soft heart of yours.”

His skin crawled. He wasn’t Jesse. There was no way in hell he was afraid of Mercy. She just knew how to get into people’s heads. “I’m doing what I have to do.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s easy.” 

He crossed his arms, defiant. “My job’s never been easy.” Not in Overwatch, not here. 

“And it never will be, not until the mission’s over.” She started to go back around her desk to her chair.

“The mission’s never over.” He muttered with a sigh, going to leave before pausing just outside the door. It was a bad idea. He shouldn’t bother asking. He just wanted to try and get a glimpse of the woman he knew all those years ago. “Why’d you save me?” He asked anyway.

No hesitation. “You were too valuable an asset to lose.”

He left her office.

He continued his wandering around the base, wondering when the higher ups would approve of his request. Maybe he should’ve asked to go himself. Not that they’d say yes. The idea of seeing Lena one last time, seeing the light go out of her eyes, it made him sick. It might’ve convinced Mercy that he wasn’t soft though. Maybe.

His head hurt. He considered stopping by the common room for a snack or something, but that risked running into Mcree or anyone in general. He didn’t need interaction right now, what he needed was a stiff drink. Or his bed.

He returned to his room despite it only being slightly past 3. Everything was too much for him. He shouldn’t have gone to see Mercy. She brought up too many emotions. Too many memories that wanted to resurface. Angela not Mercy. He couldn’t call her by her name; it was too close. Angela was good natured, warm, and caring. Mercy was just a code name, a person who carried out orders and gave them without a thought, who never wondered about those who got hurt. She was a doctor, but only because it was useful. 

He was too old for this shit. Too old for pain, too old to deal with death, too old to be giving out orders and following orders. _Let an old man have his peace_ , he thought with a laugh. He chose this life. 

It was too late to go back now. Age was just a number anyway, his mind drifting to Reinhardt briefly, who had to all but be sedated into retirement. That life wasn’t for him. He wasn’t meant for peace.

He sat on the edge of his bed, head in his hands. The pounding headache was caused by him being tired. He was old, he could be tired. 

His data pad beeped. His request had been approved.

…………  


The breeze was accompanied by the gentle ringing of wind chimes. The air was cool on the parts where he was still flesh. His breathing was even, in seven counts, out eight. He could see the world from his seat, at least he liked to pretend he could, as childish as it was to entertain such thoughts. But it was a spectacular view, high up in the mountains of Nepal, the one constant in his travels. Not a home, that would always be Hanamura, but a sanctuary. 

“Hanzo.”

He rose from where he sat at the edge of landing. Hanzo approached Zenyatta. “Hello Zenyatta. It is always a pleasure to see you.” He bowed respectfully to the omnic monk. 

He befriended Zenyatta some time ago, early on after the fall of Overwatch. When his heart was heavy with the loss of his friends and his mind in turmoil. He was at peace with his body not too long after his last surgery, that was never a problem. The real problem was how people distrusted him as a cyborg, the isolation reminding him of how he felt after the battle between him and his brother. In Overwatch he was surrounded with friends and helpful hands, but something still ate at him. How alone he felt without Genji to turn to, even when they stopped speaking, he was there at the least and then he wasn’t. Then Overwatch was gone as well. Hanzo was truly alone for the first time in his life, without heavy burdens placed on him, he was free, without his brother, he was lost.

The death of his brother had haunted him for so long. The elders said Genji had to be dealt with. Irresponsible, bad for reputation, a mess, a liability. Hanzo challenged Genji to a duel, he remembered the twisting feeling in his gut as he raised his sword up to his brother. Neither were keen on dying, neither had their dragons been, fueling them during the fight but never truly appearing. That’d been enough however, they collapsed beside one another when their bodies couldn’t take anymore. The floor was a mess of their blood. Hanzo was sure they’d both die, he couldn’t feel his legs anymore and his left arm was a mess, it hung from little more than a piece of meat. He was sure several vital organs of his were badly damaged as well. His jaw was shattered, there wasn’t a plastic surgeon in the world that could’ve fixed the destruction left in his mouth’s place. He never really got a look at Genji, consciousness had been lost to him, the last memory of his brother a blur of a blood puddle that slowly grew and Hanzo’s hand gripping Genji’s sleeve, a silent apology. He had nightmares for years of that lifeless body.

When Hanzo had found the monks, he felt he was beyond redemption. He survived, his brother didn’t. They allowed him to stay with them, though he felt he didn’t deserve it. Their kindness was too much for him, an affection he hadn’t felt in so long that it devoured him. He ended up repeatedly leaving and coming back to the monastery, for safety, for a resting place, for warmth. Zenyatta had befriended him first, patiently waiting for Hanzo to share his troubles. The omnic simply listened and didn’t dispense knowledge or advice where it wasn’t wanted. He couldn’t forgive himself for the murder of his brother, he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to. But the nightmares became less common place. His mind had quieted some. 

“Are you well?” Zenyatta asked, his head tilted at an angle that tgave the equivalent of a smile. It always amazed Hanzo how expressive omnics could be with their ever-still faces. Hanzo looked out over the mountains, his hair ribbon fluttering in the wind. “Yes, I was just enjoying the view.” Today he didn’t lie, sometimes he did, just to not trouble his friend. He still felt undeserving of their kindness. Zenyatta could always tell when he lied anyway.

“It is remarkably beautiful today, isn’t it?” The monk turned to peer at the view as well. A melodic hummed whirred inside of him, almost like a contented sigh. “You leave for Hanamura soon, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Hanzo tensed. Tomorrow he’d be headed home. He hadn’t seen it in so long. Had it changed as much as he did? What about the Shimada? During his time in Overwatch, he’d struck down more than a few of his family members, revenge for Genji and himself. He knew his family was no longer a threat to anyone. “I am…unsure how to feel. My home was beautiful, but the memories there…”

“You will make new ones my friend, of this I am sure.” 

“I suppose I will.” Hanzo toyed with the end of his ribbon, watching as the light glinted off of it. “Don’t you have to leave soon as well? For King’s Row?”

The orbs around Zenyatta pinged, as if reflecting his excitement. “Yes, Mondatta and I will depart soon. Once we return I will be leaving the Shambali.” 

“Ah, how could I forget.” He’d known for some time that Zenyatta had planned on leaving. Hanzo couldn’t help but feel somewhat disappointed, knowing one day he’d return to Nepal and his friend would no longer be there. 

“It’s time for me to go Hanzo. We’re monks, not celebrities. I feel that my brothers may be lost in all the glamour of being held in such high regard, many still see us as just robots, serving some code, many more have started fan clubs.” Zenyatta bowed his head; sadness. “This is not the direction I saw us heading so long ago and I will no longer be part of this path.”

Hanzo smiled, not that Zenyatta could see it behind the plate that covered the lower half of Hanzo’s face. “I wish you luck on your travels.” 

“As I do to you. But we have time before we both depart.” Zenyatta hovered away, and Hanzo followed.

The beauty of the monastery never stopped awing Hanzo. Everyone was just trying to find themselves, all so warm and inviting. A place where omnics and humans truly lived in peace. He was greeted cheerily by both as he walked with Zenyatta. A part of him never wanted to leave and make this his true home, not a temporary paradise. But that was unrealistic. 

Hanzo thought of Hanamura with an ache in his chest. He missed the cherry blossoms. The festivals where children ran playing in the streets and the colorful lights. People speaking his tongue. His culture. Hanzo dreamed of walking by the ramen shop and into the arcade, where many a time in the past he’d have to pull his brother out by force. 

At the time, it wasn’t funny, he found his brother to be down-right embarrassing, now however, it brought out a laugh. Zenyatta mused, “Something funny?”

“I was just,” Hanzo lowered his eyes, “thinking of my brother.” He stopped in his tracks, Zenyatta quietly floated near him, not pressing him for his thoughts. “It has been a long time since I thought of Genji in such light.”

Zenyatta hummed, letting a moment pass before speaking, “I think your trip to Hanamura will be good for you.”

_I believe so too_ , Hanzo kept the words to himself, not needing to voice his agreement. His left arm, though cybernetic, thrummed with the dragons under his skin, as though they too we’re looking forward to his venture. _Home_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story's starting to pick up now. You guys are going to hate me for the next few chapters honestly. Also, sorry this is a day late, I fucked up.


	4. Chapter 4

Genji stared at himself in the mirror, clad in only underwear, looking over the parts of him that were flesh, and the parts that weren’t. His entire right arm and his lower left arm were synthetic, as well as his right leg, and his chest, an artificial heart pumped blood through him. It was all just synthetic muscle, when on missions he wore armored plating over it. Most importantly, these parts didn’t belong to him. They were foreign, mechanic, not his. 

He frowned and put on his yukata after putting his armor on, however leaving his left arm out of its sleeve and not pulling either side all the way over so it fit loosely. He tied the obi and placed the knot slightly closer to the center than it should be. Little rebellious habits from his youth, something that used to annoy Hanzo when they went out casually or to festivals. 

_But everything annoyed Hanzo back then._

Genji flinched, thinking of Hanzo caused a physical reaction from him. Every time he thought of his brother an ache spread through him. He was never able to name the feeling. If it were anger or grief, he couldn’t tell. There wasn’t a chance that he missed his brother. He buried those feelings the day he felt Hanzo’s blood pool under his cheek and the grip on his sleeve loosen. _He didn’t miss him._

His data pad beeped. He picked it up, read the message and carelessly tossed the device on to his bed. It was just a message verifying his departure later today. It was just a simple mission to Hanamura. All it required was a slit throat and polite note left behind. 

The Shimada had become useless over the years, with their numbers dwindling due to an unknown assassin. His family became desperate of late, hoarding the weapons given to them by Talon and selling them for profit, a quick way to make money with how poor the once renowned family had become. Talon didn’t appreciate this and was sending Genji to cut ties, by killing off the last of his family.

With his blades strapped to his back and his visor tied on a cord to his obi, he went searching for Mccree. He’d rather spend his last few hours on base pestering the cowboy than sulking in his room. Of course there were a number of people Genji could bother as well, but none of them were nearly as fun or interesting. Morrison certainly wasn’t on that list and Mercy was someone you didn’t go to without a reason, besides she only ever wanted to make his body more robotic. 

Genji found Jesse sitting at a table in a secluded corner in the common room, reading something on his tablet. Further inspection found Jesse was wearing his chest plate and his gun belt on, Peacekeeper snug in its holder. Jesse had a mission too it seemed. Genji was a little miffed that his friend hadn’t told him he was leaving, but he let it pass.

“Yo,” Genji said as he slid into the chair across from Jesse, plucking the tablet from his hand. He frowned when he saw Jesse had locked it. Damned quick hands. “How unlike you to keep things from me.”

Jesse shrugged and leaned back in his chair. “Nice to see you too.” He grabbed for the tablet, only for Genji to move it out of his reach. “Very funny. Give it back. Got an important mission today, if you couldn’t tell.”

“Hmm,” was all Genji said. He placed the device down on the table. Jesse immediately took it and scooted his chair back a little, as if that distance would stop Genji from taking it again if he wanted to. 

“Any reason as to why you can’t tell me about it.”

“Maybe I don’t feel like sharing.” 

Genji’s brow twitched in annoyance. “Jesse, what are you keeping from me?”

Jesse laughed, “It’s just a payload mission. Ain’t nothing’ special.” 

“ _Just_ a payload mission?” Genji crossed his arms, he felt as though Jesse wasn’t telling him the whole truth.

“Hey, I wasn’t even supposed to say that much. It’s classified.” 

It was evident that Genji wasn’t getting any more out of Jesse so he sighed, letting it go. When he was younger, he reveled in all the gossip he could get out of his friends and family. In Talon, there were so many secrets people may as well staple their lips shut since they hardly said anything at all. The people here bored him. So, of course he was annoyed that Jesse couldn’t tell him this little bit of info. 

The air in the room suddenly became tense, as if everyone had sucked in a breath and not let go. The talking around the two quieted down as the Mercy entered the common room. She held an empty coffee mug in one hand and an open file in the other, disinterested in her surroundings. She stopped in front of the coffee machine and hissed under her breath in displeasure at seeing she had to make a new pot. Once she set it to brew, her eyes slid over to Jesse and Genji, as if she were aware of them from the moment she entered the room. It sent a chill down Genji’s spine as she looked him over. She always called him her greatest work.

The pot finished brewing and she refilled her mug, leaving the room as silently as she had entered. The tension eased out like a sigh of relief and people went back to their business. Genji chewed his lip and Jesse cracked his knuckles. Genji stared at Jesse’s hands, both human. Untouched by Mercy.

“You alright there, partner?” Jesse to noticed the other’s discomfort.

Genji muttered after a beat, “I don’t like her eyes.”

Jesse raised a brow, “Come again?”

“Her eyes. They see everything but you can’t see anything in them.” At first, Genji had been grateful to Angela for saving him. Over time though, he became aware of how uncaring she actually was. He was an experiment to her. Mercy liked playing with life, gave it because she could and acted as if taking it would be just as simple. 

Jesse tipped his hat up by his knuckle, clearly surprised by how serious Genji sounded. “Never thought of it like that. To me, she always seemed so damn cold. Like there ain’t a bit of warm blood in her.” He huffed, “It ain’t good on either of our health to be talkin’ ‘bout her like this. What about your mission to Hanamura? You allowed to talk about it?”

Genji was grateful for the change in topic. “Yes. It isn’t anything too important, just cutting the last ties with my family.” He rested his chin on his hand, a crooked smile tugging at his lips.

Jesse chuckled. “You and those damned puns. When was the last time you went home anyway? It’s a long time since they sent you there.”

Genji shrugged, “A few years I believe. This may be the last time I go; my family is of no use to Talon now.” 

“Ain’t Hanamura your ancestral home or somethin’? It won’t be hard to let go of all that?”

“There is nothing left for me there.” Genji crossed his arms and looked away from Mccree. "My ancestors can kindly shove their swords up their asses."

Jesse blinked, then turned his attention to his beeping data pad. He turned the screen on and read the message sent to him. “Well, looks like I gotta go.” He got up from his chair and jerked his head toward the door. “Be a gentleman would ya and walk me to the hangar?” He smirked.

Genji smiled and started off toward the hangar with Jesse, “What? Do you enjoy my company so much you can’t stand being without me even on such a short walk?”

“Coming from the guy who’s always searching me out.” He barked out a laugh. “Maybe I want your last memory of me to be of my handsome figure waving goodbye to only you. You never know, this could be the mission where I kick the bucket.”

“I sincerely doubt whatever you’re doing could be that dangerous.” Genji shook his head. He’d be upset for sure if Jesse died but he doubted it’d happen anytime soon. The man was too stubborn. “You’re more likely to lose a limb than die."

Jesse only shrugged as they entered the hangar bay. His transport was ready, engines warmed up. They only waited on him. Jesse turned to Genji and gave him a little wave. “Don’t miss me too much darling.”

Genji rolled his eyes as Jesse sauntered off. Despite their joking, Genji had a feeling Jesse’s mission was slightly more serious than just a payload mission. He had no doubt Jesse’s would come back though. 

His mind wandered to his own mission as he left the hangar. There was nothing left for him in Hanamura. The family there held no meaning to him, all distant cousins and a few aunts and uncles he didn’t care for. Murdering them didn’t bother him. They deserved it. It’d be a petty revenge.

He leapt up into the mess of piping and wiring above his head. It was a good place to be alone and to people-watch. Genji crawled his way through the pipes; he memorized the inner workings of the base long ago. Being so light on his feet made it easy to maneuver through entanglements without getting stuck. He slid through a maintenance tunnel that led all the way to the roof.

The Talon base was effectively in the middle of nowhere in an abandoned factory. Talon had gutted the place to make it a base of operations. Made sense, people didn’t come out here anymore. It was a dead field, screwed up by pollution that no one cared to clean up. 

Genji’s mind drifted back his days walking the streets of Hanamura. He was carefree. The only worry he had was whose bed he’d wake up in the next morning. And how hung over he’d be. Back then he didn’t have responsibilities that were pressing like now. Occasionally, he’d be sent out to assassinate threats to the business, but that was easy. Killing was always easy. 

_Except once_. 

His hands gripped the fabric of his yukata as he thought of Hanzo for the second time that day. Hanzo was dead and he still couldn’t put words to the feeling it gave him. His brother tried to kill him when Genji would’ve worshipped the ground he walked on. Genji had loved Hanzo even though he had a funny way of showing it. He was the younger brother; he wasn’t supposed to make life easy. But Hanzo tried to kill him because the elders told him to. They fought, Hanzo died. He’s gone. Why did it still bother Genji now?

Genji sucked in a breath and exhaled slowly. _Maybe I’ll visit his grave_ , he thought to himself, _perhaps that will finally put these thoughts to rest_.

…………..  


He breathed, something so human and normal, but he felt numb. Maybe it was the programming from so long ago. Sometimes he wondered if they did it on purpose, made him unfeeling and uncaring. He never asked, not like he could anyway. They took his voice away a long time ago. 

He went through the mechanisms of cleaning of his sniper rifle for the third time that day. Tomorrow he had two targets. One an omnic, the other a hero. The latter of the two had been added on two days before, a mild annoyance as it didn’t give him much time to plan out how he’d go about getting both, but he’d manage. He always got the job done, no matter what. His hotel room was high above the streets of King’s Row, he’d already mapped out escape routes from the hotel and from where his targets will be, in case of complications. Not that it was likely but it was always good to take precautions. 

His communicator beeped with a reminder, Jesse Mccree had his own mission that would coincide with his. The details were left out, but they weren’t important to him. All it meant was that he had to be sure to leave the scene even faster than before because Mccree’s job would apparently cause a bit of a commotion. Not a problem, never a problem, no worr-

He twitched. His eyes landing on the picture of Jesse. Something about it caused a glitch in him. It didn’t happen every time. Maybe it’s because they kept the photo from Mccree’s Blackwatch days. That was another reason he was kept away from Jesse, because there was a chance it would cause him to-

_Wake up_. 

Gerard’s head suddenly snapped up. He held the communicator with shaking hands. He was himself again, a rush of emotions causing tears to well up. He dropped the communicator to press the heels of his hands against his eyes. The impact of the communicator hitting the floor had caused the screen to bring up his second target. Lena’s smiling face was shown and it caused another twitch in his neck. He rubbed at the muscle and wondered for how long he would have control until his programming kicked back in.

Talon’s brainwashing was good. Most the time, Gerard Lacroix was just a nameless assassin called he'd taken to calling _Husk_ who shot down targets because he was told to, no other reason. On base, he didn’t interact with anyone and very few people knew who he was. They kept him locked up in a room barren of anything but a bed and a desk. Jack and Jesse didn’t even know he was alive, Mercy preferred it that way. 

Yes, Talon’s brainwashing was good, but it had flaws. The Husk had what Gerard would come to call ‘glitches’, where something would trigger the Husk to go to sleep and Gerard would wake up. Triggers could be anything and never did the same thing work twice. It was always a shock, sometimes he’d puke, other times he’d sob. Gerard was thankful that the Husk never remembered any time Gerard was awake. 

He packed his rifle into a bag along with a flashbang he’d acquired during some other glitch and threw on his coat in a hurry. He wasn’t sure how long he had until he would become Husk again. Sometimes it only lasted minutes, other times, hours. The last thing Gerard was going to do was waste any bit of his precious time. He had to warn Gabriel about the assassination and about Jesse’s mission. 

It was Gerard who had slipped Gabriel the info about Mercy two weeks ago. He'd woken up prior to Mercy’s mission, having overheard Genji’s laughter though his door, it gave him a reminder of Hanzo. He used the glitch to spy on Mercy and learn of her mission to deliver experimental nanites to a drop off location where Jesse would be. It was simple to leave a trail for Gabriel to follow. 

He’d known about Gabriel and Amelie being alive for a while before that, having gotten a glimpse of the two a year before on a mission to assassinate Overwatch agents. Gabriel had gotten lucky and managed to catch on to a Talon plan. Gerard was only there as back up, should the regular agents have messed up, he’d step in. And he did. Gabriel and Fahreeha had shown up and took out his team. It was a spectacular display of Fahreeha’s fire power and Gabe’s tactical prowess. That wasn’t what made him glitch though, it was the glimpse of Amelie driving their getaway car that woke him up. He’d stalked them to their base and since then helped however he could. 

Gerard thought of Amelie. Her long black hair, the way it felt like silk in his hands. He remembered the way his hands used to feel on her hips, her arms thrown around his neck when he would come back from missions. Her lips, soft and full, always turned up the corners when she saw him and gentle in their kisses. His love for her and her love for him. He started crying again, silent tears sliding down his cheeks. He missed her voice, her soothing _Je t’aime_. The thoughts of her overwhelmed him but kept him moving.

He couldn’t tell her he loved her anymore. 

His hand touched the base of his throat where the scars were. When he wasn’t himself, not being able to speak didn’t matter. They didn’t need him to speak, just follow orders. As Gerard, it made him feel helpless. Taking away someone’s voice was an almost guaranteed way to break a man. Almost.

Gabriel’s hideout was on the edge of Kings’s Row, far from wandering eyes. The first time he saw it he laughed. It was an old Blackwatch hideout. Gabriel used it on a few missions in King’s Row. Gerard figured Gabriel chose it because none of Gabriel’s current team would be aware of what their little hidey-hole was. The building was so run down and weathered with age, perfect for illegal operations.

Gerard was perched on top of a roof a few buildings away, staring at the building through the scope of his rifle. Through the windows he could see the group going about various tasks. Fareeha and Torbjorn were arguing, something to do with her combat armor most likely. Gabriel was sitting with his head in hands, papers littered on the desk in front of him. That man was going to kill himself from stress before anyone got the chance to put a bullet in him. And then there was Amelie, peacefully cleaning her own sniper rifle. The sight made him to grind his teeth, she wasn’t meant for this life. He wondered briefly if she would ever be one of his casualties, if one day Gerard wouldn’t be the one in control and her corpse would join the bodies that piled up underneath him, his own personal catacombs.

_The Catacombs_. What a perfect way to warn them. 

The funny thing about King’s Row was that areas of it were just littered with omnic parts. Especially here at the edge of the neighborhood. People here didn’t care much for omnics, the graffiti said as much. It made it easy for him to find a spare omnic head. What he was planning to do was grim, felt almost like disrespecting the dead. What would happen tomorrow would be even worse if he didn’t do this. Though, he didn’t have to be so creative about it.

He propped the head on against a wall parallel from the hideout, thankful that this side of the building didn’t have any windows. He didn’t have spray paint with him, but he did have a hologram projector that he typically used as a decoy device. Now he programmed it to project the words “ENGLAND’S CATACOMBS. SHINY AND NEW. IT’LL BE A BLAST.” With a few quick taps, he set it so that it would project the text as soon as one of them stepped out the door. He included coordinates at the bottom of the text and deployed the emitter by the omnic head and leaned the flashbang against it, making it clear who they’d be dealing with. He was sure it got the point across. Might catch Amelie’s attention too.

Lena would have to be sacrificed, along with the omnic. Gerard knew Gabriel was going to need his entire team to stop Jesse’s mission. There was too much at stake to split up such a small team. He also didn’t want to take the chance of having to fight Amelie. Call him selfish, but the last he’d want would be for the Husk to kill his love. The only thing he could hope for would be for Lena to be able to stop him before he put a bullet in her head. 

His body felt cold, the feeling radiating from his chest and out. Gerard was about to go back asleep and the other one would come back. He clenched his hands to stop them from shaking. Not yet. He couldn’t turn back yet, not here at least. There’d be no way for him to explain how he was alive and what he was doing if they caught him. The Husk had one instinct without orders: kill.

Gerard ran, far from the hideout and far from Amelie. That was one good thing about his alter ego, it had no sense of tiredness. The Husk could go on until his blood ran cold and his heart stopped beating. His legs were strong, made for combat. Gerard used the physical boost he got to get as far away as he could, it wasn’t until he encountered busy streets that slowed down to pry away any curious eyes. 

The hotel wasn’t far. Gerard was exhausted from fighting back for now. It felt good to have his body in control for the short while, but now he had to rest. 

Gerard closed his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. Fuck me this chapter took a lot of fucking research for little things. Also, there's a chance chapter 5 might be late. I'm kinda behind on it because it's a longer chapter. Some serious story shit is going down. Sorry in advance. Any questions go ahead and forward them to my tumblr idontcareanymorethisisshit.tumblr.com


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, as to avoid confusion, these two POV's take place at the same time.

Gabriel had a headache. Nothing new. He’d woken up with it and it persisted well throughout the day. It was the stress. His job came with it. Except now he didn’t get paid for it. Hard to make money when you’re supposed to be dead. 

He pressed a palm to his forehead, applying pressure to ease the pain. Everything was just too much. His mind wouldn’t stop running. Nothing was making sense to him. People are supposed to be dead, but they’re not. Yes, he’s one of those people, but that’s different. 

Jesse Mcree, alive? Yes. Was he supposed to be? _No._

Jack Morrison, alive? Maybe. Was he supposed to be? _No._

Angela Ziegler, alive? Unfortunately. Will she be for long? _Not if he has anything so say about it._

With a sigh, Gabriel lit himself a cigar. Filthy habit, but he was of no mind to stop now. He wondered briefly if Mcree still smoked. Gabriel was the one who got him into the habit in the first place. Not something to be proud of, but the kid took after him in more ways than one. Jack didn’t like it sure, but Jack wasn’t the one in charge of Mcree. 

Thinking of the two soured his stomach. His own ghosts. Death didn’t bother him. Blackwatch made sure of that. It was when Death couldn’t do his fucking job that he got pissed off. His life was made a hell of a lot harder because some people were too stubborn to die. It was making him age way faster than he had any right to be.

In the corner of his eye he caught sight of a red scrap of fabric, poking out of his bag. Gabriel paused with the cigar raised part way to his lips. He took slow steps over to his bag. He’d forgotten about it for so long. It could’ve become just a piece of fabric, not memories of a better time. 

Mercy was the one who gave it to him. _This is the most I can give you_ , she had said, handing him the bit of Mcree’s serape. It was all that was left. Gabriel had hated that stupid blanket, always made Mcree take it off. It was out of uniform. It looked ridiculous and was impractical. No self-respecting Blackwatch agent would’ve worn something so…so…

Gabriel held the cloth in his fist. He was shaking. Mccree looked so angry when Gabriel saw him. What had he done to cause that? Did he betray him in some way? 

A knock at his door made Gabriel compose himself. He stowed away the piece of serape and swallowed down the choking sob that had threatened to spill out his mouth. He didn’t cry. Couldn’t afford to. Instead he took a long pull from his cigar, tapped the ash off the end and opened the door to Amelie. 

“Amelie?” Gabriel asked. He was slightly concerned with the way she held her arms in close to her body. She chewed her lip until it was clearly swollen. 

“You have to see this.” Her voice wavered as she stepped away from the door, not meeting his eyes. Scared. 

He followed her through the hideout. “Amelie what’s wrong? Did something happen?” A sense of foreboding washed over him. 

Amelie didn’t answer and just kept walking. Her silence ate at him. He noticed that there wasn’t anyone in the hideout. Gabriel could hear the voices of his teammates outside. Worry, everyone was worried about something. The hell was going on? 

He followed Amelie to the side of the building where the rest of the team was, talking in hushed tones. “What the fuck is that?” He pointed to a holographic message on the wall. 

Fahreeha shrugged, a frown tugging at her face. She was too young to have worry lines, Gabriel thought. “We don’t know. I saw it just now and...” 

“What does it mean?” Torbjorn said, spinning his mechanic hand. He did that sometimes, nerves. 

Amelie hugged herself tighter, “England doesn’t have catacombs, but it does have an underground city.” 

_IT’LL BE A BLAST._ “You think someone’s gonna bomb the omnics?” Gabriel squinted at coordinates. Busy place usually, but today Mondatta was coming, the streets would be dead. No chance for exposure. He considered calling in Lena, but the press would want to see her at the event. Lena probably wanted to go too. 

“Think about it. _Shiny and new_ , omnics are shiny, an entire population of them deactivated would certainly be new.” 

Gabriel raised his cigar to take a pull from it, frowning upon seeing how much of it was ash from his neglect. “Alright, Torbjorn, you’re sitting this one out. Your turret will draw too much attention.” The short man gave a huff in response, muttering something about how he didn’t want to help a bunch of bots anyway. Fair enough. “Fareeha, I want you flying low, stay out of the skies if you can. We don’t need Helix getting reports of you here.” Fareeha nodded and left with Torbjorn to get ready. 

Gabriel dropped his neglected cigar and ground it out with the heel of his boot. Amelie stood by, toeing at the emitter. Gabriel watched her a moment, before stooping down to grab the flashbang propped up against an omnic head. “Mcree.” He scowled and hooked the flashbang to his belt. 

“You think Mcree is the one who left this?” Amelie’s voice was low, her eyes downcast. 

“No, I think our friend is letting us know he’ll be there.” He sighed. “What’s bugging you?” 

“It’s nothing.” A lie. 

“Amelie.” 

She remained silent for a moment. “The Catacombs. Of all things, why The Catacombs?” She snapped out the words. Amelie rarely lost her temper, she usually kept things in and it took a lot of prodding to get anything out of her. She started to press on the emitter with the point of her shoe, causing the message to flicker. 

Gabriel shrugged. “Why not, it gets a point across. Ton of dead omnics, underground. Shiny part makes sense too.” 

“I think you’re missing the part where the catacombs are well known in France.” The device beneath her foot started to whine in protest. 

“Might be a coincidence.” 

“Or,” the emitter cracked and the text flickered out, “someone’s trying to tell me something. It would not be the first time one of these messages were directed to me.” She kicked the device. 

“Trying to tell you what? That Gerard is alive?” She didn’t answer, only kept her eyes trained on the now broken emitter. “Amelie. C’mon.” 

“Would it be such a long shot,” she asked, exasperated. “If everyone else can be alive, why not him?” 

“Gerard has been missing for years. We don’t even know for sure that Talon did it.” 

“And we don’t know for sure if Jack is alive either but you’re so willing to accept it. What, did you continue to hold a grudge against the man well into his grave? Why is the chance of him being alive greater than Gerard? Because of your ridiculous need for payback?” Her words were sharp and biting, meant to hurt. 

Gabriel opened his mouth before closing it quickly. It stung for sure. Her eyes finally met his and they were the most alive he’d seen them in years. “This conversation is over.” He turned away from Amelie as if the fire in her expression would burn him if he looked too long. 

“Gabriel…” 

“Go inside and gear up, we have work to do.” He didn’t want to hear an apology. She meant what she said. There wasn’t any taking it back. He waited until she went inside, taking a minute to himself.

She was right, of course. Gabriel had a grudge against a dead man. For letting Overwatch fall, for not listening to him. Gabriel had a feeling the U.N. was in more control of Overwatch than Jack knew, Jack was just a puppet, doing as he was told while believing he was more than a poster boy. Gabriel hated Jack for letting it all go to his head. He hated himself for not handling the situation back then better. 

Inside, Torbjorn wordlessly helped Fareeha assemble her suit. He moved past them and into his room without sparing a glance in their direction. They’d heard the argument, clearly. It didn’t have anything to do with them. As long they kept their thoughts to themselves it was fine. 

Gabriel got to work putting on his armor. It was so routine for him it hardly took any time, unfortunate because he’d take any distraction at that moment. He had to get his head straight, the idea of fighting Mcree again left him feeling hollow. This time, Gabriel’d have the jump on him, that didn’t make it any easier. The wound left on his bicep from their last engagement ached dully. 

He leaned heavily against his door. Sure, he was wasting time, they had no idea when Mcree would show up so he should get the team moving. 

He didn’t move an inch. 

There wasn’t a part of him that was prepared. How could he be? Gabriel had practically raised the kid. He thought he did the right thing back then. How was he supposed to know the ingrate would go and join Talon? 

Ingrate. Ha, what used to be just a joke Gabriel used when Mcree was being insubordinate turned out to be true. Mcree leveled a gun at Gabriel, stared him down with those cybernetic eyes and tried to kill him. After everything Gabriel had done for Mccree. The little shit. 

That was enough to steel his resolve. 

He left his room. He made a mental note to let the team know they’d be leaving this base. He wasn’t sure how much they could trust their little spy. Whether they were friend of foe hadn’t been determined yet. 

Gabriel stepped outside to meet Fareeha and Amelie. Fareeha in full armor, Amelie with a duffle bag slung around her shoulders that carried both her rifle and Gabriel’s guns. Fareeha saluted Gabriel and he gave her a nod. Amelie just gripped the strap to the bag tightly. 

The three of them piled into the back of their truck after Gabriel punched the coordinates into the auto-pilot Torbjorn installed, allowing for them to ride along completely hidden. The ride was tense. Fareeha sat stiffly because of her suit, Amelie tucked herself into a corner and Gabriel leaned against the back door. 

Gabriel looked Fareeha over. A part of him felt guilty, taking her away from Helix. She had an amazing job, a life. Sure, it wasn’t what Amari had wanted for her, but Fareeha had it good. Now here she was, hiding out with them, a fugitive because she stole the armor to help them. He fucked her future over. 

“You’re staring.” 

“Hmm?” Fareeha’s disarming smile betrayed the mood of the transport. It briefly reminded Gabriel of when she was just a child, when things were simple. “Lost in thought.” 

The rest of the ride went on in silence. When it finally stopped, the sun was set, giving them the cover of darkness. The street was dead like he thought it’d be. Amelie gave Gabriel back his guns before taking to the rooftops with Fareeha. Gabriel stayed on the ground where he was most effective. He eyed the garage door, figuring that was most likely where the bomb would come from but there wasn’t a single way to open it from the outside that he could tell. 

“Gabriel.” Amelie’s voice crackled through the comm. 

“See something?” 

“I saw a Talon hovercraft not too far from us,” a pause, “at least ten agents came out and…merde.” 

“Mccree.” Not a question. 

“Yeah.” 

“How long do you think we have till they’re on top of us?” 

“Ten minutes at the most.” 

Gabriel squatted in his cover and tipped his head back against the wall. “Perfect.” 

“There’s a few going for higher ground. Snipers.” 

“Stay hidden as best you can. Tell me when they’re almost on top of us and I’ll give you the signal to take out them out. Fareeha, stick to concussive blasts. Your rockets will draw too much attention.” 

“Yes sir!” Fareeha’s voice came over the comm. Amelie went silent, concentrating. 

Gabriel waited quietly. Amelie’s comm was still live, he could hear her steady breathing as she waited. The first time she held a gun, she’d been so unsure in the beginning. It almost killed him how great of a sniper she became. 

“They’re close.” 

“Give me a countdown.” 

“Dix.” 

Gabriel rose from his squat, knees slightly stiff. Damn he was getting old. 

“Neuf, huit, sept…” 

He held his guns up, their weight reassuring in his grip. 

“Six, vingt, quatre…” 

He turned out of his cover and into the alley on “trois, deux…” 

“Un.” 

“Now!” He unloaded a shell directly into the chest of a Talon agent just as he heard Amelie’s gun go off. Gabriel rolled to avoid a spray of bullets and Amelie’s gun went off twice more. He kept count in his head as he fought the remaining six in front of him before he heard a familiar voice at the mouth of the alleyway. 

“Howdy Gabe!” 

Gabriel used one of the agents as a human shield as Mccree unloaded Peacekeeper. “You still give yourself away too easy.” Gabriel couldn’t help but criticize his old recruit. Still so damn obvious. 

Mccree smirked and reloaded his gun, shrugging. “I thought your old age might’ve finally caught up with you.” His eyes eerily glowed from beneath his hat. “Guess not.” 

Gabriel was well aware of the last five combatants moving around him to surround him. They were smart. Covering all means of escape. One of them was even favoring his left side. Must’ve been someone who knew him from Blackwatch, Gabriel had a habit of letting his left side fall open, it was rare, but trained eyes would catch it. He wasn’t scared, he had a little bird watching over him. 

“I really didn’t expect to run into you here, and Mercy sure as shit won’t be too keen when she finds out you killed more of my guys.” Over-confident. Cocky. Back to old habits. “So, to make my life a little easier, I’m just gonna kill you and get on with my work.” He smiled, all too eager, and pointed the gun in between Gabriel’s eyes just as Fareeha blasted the group with a concussive blast. 

Gabriel went flying and landed badly on one of the agents, rendering the other unconscious. That left four. He got up as quickly as he could, considering how dizzy he suddenly was. “Could you cut it any closer?” He snapped at her through the comm and proceeded to collect himself. Mccree had been thrown back by the blast and was just starting to raise himself back up. 

“Sorry I- “ 

“Reinforcements!” Amelie interrupted, her rifle going off again. 

Gabriel smashed the head of an agent against the wall, ignoring the sickening crack. “How many?” He threw the body of another Talon agent at Mccree, effectively knocking the man back down. The last two were out of commission from the blast. 

“Too many!” Fareeha answered. 

“Fuck,” Gabriel breathed as he exited the alley. He turned just in time to avoid a punch thrown by Mccree. 

“Don’t ignore me!” There was a fury in Mccree’s eyes that’s almost startling. That was something Gabriel kept thinking about. Mccree was so angry. 

Fareeha screamed into the communicator. “Fareeha!” Amelie called out, echoing Gabriel’s sense of dread. 

Gabriel was trying to make his way back toward the payload with Mccree hot on his tail. He could see Amelie’s lithe figure moving about the rooftops. No response from Fareeha. “Fareeha, are you okay!?” Still no answer. He chewed the inside of his cheek till he tasted blood. “Damn it answer me!” 

Fareeha’s voice came through static, “I’m okay. Suit’s in bad shape though, I can still-“ 

“Not an option, get somewhere safe. I can’t risk losing you.” Fareeha’s response was drowned out by Mccree’s gun, the bullet missing Gabriel’s ear by a hair. Mccree was a better shot than that. He was trying to get Gabriel’s attention. _Don’t ignore me._

Gabriel turned and lunged himself at Mccree. Amelie was left alone to secure the EMP by herself. She was a good sniper, but not good enough to take on an entire squadron on her own. Mccree had to be dealt with quickly. 

They weren’t too far from where Amelie was, he could hear her rifle and return fire behind. “I got the last sniper! Gabriel, they’re getting too close, I’m going in.” 

Gabriel started pushing Mccree back, so he could finally get eyes on the EMP. “Bad idea.” He knocked Mccree’s gun out of his grip. “Stay where you are I’ll be there in a second!” 

“We ain’t done here!” Mccree grabbed at Gabriel by the belt, his hand catching on the flashbang and pulling it loose and effectively blinding the both of them. “Shit!” 

“Can’t do that Gabe.” Her voice was so calm as Gabriel watched her leap into the fray at the entrance of the omnic city. It was all so blurry, he could barely make out Amelie in the group. 

Mccree seized Gabriel by the edges of his armor and shoved him against a wall. He was snarling. “Where the fuck did you get that?” Mccree’s eyes had clearly adjusted already, damn cybernetics. They stared him down, blue electronics burning into Gabriel’s. 

Just then Amelie screeched. His eyes were finally clearing up and he saw her go down, surrounded by Talon agents. His blood ran cold. She was going to die, right then and there. Maybe she was already dead.

Mccree shook Gabriel to draw his focus back. “Where did you get that flashbang?! Who the fuck is your spy?!” 

Gabriel glared, spitting the words into Mccree’s face. “Figure it out for yourself.” He headbutted Mccree, giving himself space. The blow stunned Mccree for a split second, just long enough for Gabriel to level a shotgun and blow off Mccree’s left arm at the elbow. 

Gabriel left Mccree’s scream of pain behind him, the spray of blood on his clothes an afterthought. All he could think about was Amelie’s body on the ground and the pool of blood slowly growing around her. The EMP moved on ahead, the Talon agents continuing to escort it along, figuring Amelie was no longer a threat. 

He approached her body slowly. Amelie was curled on her side, looking pale. She took a shuddering breath, lip caught between teeth, eyes squeezed shut, but thankfully alive. The blood was coming from a bullet hole in her leg where her hands were pressed against. It wasn’t fatal. She’d live. 

He gently began to scoop her up into his arms, she protested weakly, “No…the omnics, you have to-“ 

“The only thing I care about right now is getting you out of here alive.” His voice was soft as he left the entrance of the omnic city, taking a path where he wouldn’t run into Mccree. 

The EMP went off with a boom. The run down streets seemed far quieter suddenly. 

Fareeha found the two a little later, she was dragging her feet. Her suit was down, the EMP must’ve shut it down. “I tried to contact you but the comms weren’t working, and my suit- is she okay?” 

“She’s alive.” 

“And the mission?” 

“Failed.”  
…………………..  
Lena moved her way through the crowd, excited people chattered around. There were camera’s tracking her so she smiled as people and omnics greeted her. She was exhausted. Yes, she had been genuinely excited about this event for a while but that excitement was muddled by recent events. Still, she kept up her cheery attitude, for the public at least. 

The crowd shouts in joy as Mondatta appeared on stage, accompanied by another monk who stands to the side. There’s guards posted at the edges of the stage. People jostle her as they try to get a better look at the monk. 

“Human. Machine. We are all one within the Iris.” He gestures to the crowd as he speaks. The omnic’s voice is soothing to Lena, her appreciation for the Shambali deeply rooted with her need to keep peace. Their teachings reminded her of what she fought for. 

It all felt so peaceful. So it was only right for something to go wrong. 

She feels a brief chill and rubs her arms to rid herself of it. Someone taps her shoulder and she turns. A reporter, of course. 

The questions were expected. They were about her thoughts on the gathering, the Shambali, human-omnic relations. She smiled through it, answering as truthfully and happily as she could. The questions were a bit of blur, she wanted to pay attention to Mondatta. 

Something caught her eye, looking past the reporter’s head Lena could see a dark figure moving over the rooftops. Definitely not a guard. A problem. 

“Excuse me.” She deflected the rest of the reporter’s questions and pushed her way out of the crowd. This would look bad, but there were more important things than her public image. 

She avoids cameras and anymore reporters before finally making her way up to the roofs of the nearby buildings. Something’s not right, there should be guards posted everywhere. She walks carefully, unsure of what to expect before she finds it. 

The body is limp, dead, the neck bent at an odd angle. One of the guards. It was safe to assume that the rest of them were in the same condition. Her flesh raises in goosebumps. Whoever did this was certainly efficient, as there hadn’t be a single gunshot. 

She’s just about to warn the guards below when her arm is grabbed by gloved hand and squeezed with brute force, the communicator crushed. She meets eyes with a blank, metal helmet, covering the face of the assassin. He’s about to strike her when she blinks out of his grasp. 

The assassin is terrifyingly fast as he dashes toward her, reaching her quickly only for her to blink once again. Lena raises her pulse-pistols and fires, but he’s agile enough to dodge her attacks. It’s frustrating for her, she hasn’t dealt with a real threat in so long. 

He catches up to her again, and she goes to blink back to get away from him. Her chronal accelerator makes a noise of protest, whirring loudly in response to all the use. She stutters in her blink, almost dropping halfway across a gap between two roofs before safely blinking herself on to the next roof. Her form flickers briefly and she resorts to running. 

She crouches behind a chimney with her guns up. The reality of her accelerator almost giving out on her entirely scares the hell out of her. A fall almost killed her, of all things. The device flickers twice. She sighs then spins out of her cover, only to come face to face with the assassin. 

He sweeps her feet out from underneath her and she lands hard on her back. Her pistols fall out of her reach. She scrambles back as he stalks up to her, he pulls his sniper rifle free from where it’s strapped to his back. His movements are so smooth and sure, it’s sends chills up her spine. How can anyone be so comfortable with killing? 

“Who are you? Why are you doing this?” She asks, moving back from him. She knows that the rifle’s been aimed at her skull for a good minute now, but he’s just standing there, perfectly still. What’s he waiting for? She decides not to wait for whatever it is and blinks back again, knowing she probably can’t take him hand-to-hand and not without her pistols. Maybe she can exhaust him. 

Except that doesn’t happen. She’s just out of reach of the next roof when her chronal accelerator gives out and she falls. She lands face first and the device on her chest begins crackling with electricity. Her form flickers and she sucks in air. Everything hurts. 

She’s unsure how long she lays there before he comes to her. She tries to crawl away from him but he stops her, using the heel of his foot to roll her over on to her back and planting his foot on her chest to keep her from moving. She wheezes beneath it. She tries to reverse herself but the device only whirs and sparks in response. 

She starts trying to take the foot off her chest but it won’t even budge. He pays her no attention, only lines up his shot and fires. She hears the cries and screams of the crowd. When she turns her head she can see everyone trying to run up to Mondatta’s body, which is hidden from her view. 

The foot on her chest presses down harder as the assassin turns his attention to her, the blank mask showing her reflection. “Why? Why did you do this,” she cries out, still trying to take the foot off, if only to get a steady breath. 

The assassin tilts his head to the side, it’s a tiny movement, almost a twitch. It doesn’t matter though, he steadies himself and raises the rifle back up. He fires. 

Lena gasps, red hot pain shoots through her ribs as the bullet missed its mark in head and instead lodged itself into her ribs, through the strap holding the chronal accelerator to her, but not the device itself. The assassin got hit with a glowing purple orb just as he pulled the trigger. One of his hands is clutching his head as he twitches violently, his other hand is holding him up as he raises from his knees. She rolls off the roof just as he rips the helmet from his head. 

She lands in the arms of an omnic, a warm glow washing over her that eases the most minor of pains. She slips into unconsciousness as a mechanic voices soothes her, “Walk in harmony child…” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit so I'm sorry this is way late. I've been dealing school and then I lost my laptop charger for a while so I couldn't work on the fic at all. Also action scenes are hard as shit to write. The next will unfortunately be shorter, sorry guys.


	6. Chapter 6

Her hands were especially cold today. She didn’t notice so much, but her pateints did. She would feel them tense under hands, a quiet discomfort because no one would dare to complain to the doctor. Whether it was self-preservation or common sense, she didn’t care. As long as it didn’t affect her work, it didn’t matter. Her hands were steady, that was enough. 

Mccree was currently in recovery from surgery after his recent mission. He had a new cybernetic arm. Building prosthetics was something she’d gotten good at over the years. A number of Talon agents had some made by her. There was nothing particularly special about Mccree’s, not like Genji’s which housed his shuriken. Maybe it could be used for more ammo capacity. For now she just had to make sure he adjusted to the new arm.

The nanites from the mission she sent Mccree to acquire sat on her desk. They were experimental, dangerous, and highly illegal. Leftover from the old SEP program, the scientists tested it out, thought it’d make perfect soldiers but then it was banned because of ethics. She held the container with the nanites in her hands, delicate fingers turning the cylinder slowly. It was so easy to imagine what she could do with them. She just needed a test subject. 

That could wait however. For now, she set the container to the side and left her office for a change of scenery. She worked a lot, she could allow herself some time alone. Recent events have left her mildly stressed, maybe that was why her hands were so cold. She’d have to run tests on herself to see if stress or other strong emotions had other effects on her body. Still so much to learn.

The garage was nearby her office, she arrived within minutes. She tapped on the glass window separating her from the guard on watch in the small cubicle.

“Dr. Ziegler!” He saluted.

“I need a private transport into the city.”

The guard pressed a button on the command board in front of him, “Anywhere in particular?” 

“My usual place.”

“Of course.” 

Within minutes a sleek hovercar presented itself at the entrance of the garage. The door opened automatically for her and she slid into the backseat. The driver already knew where to go. Angela scrolled on her datapad during the drive, going through the list of agents she could possibly use the nanites on. It was a far enough drive that she could take her time scrolling through medical files. 

It was tricky, finding the perfect test subject. It had to be someone whose body wouldn’t reject the nanites, there were a few people whose nervous systems would immediately down at the presence of a foreign entity like this. Reading the old notes from when testing was done in SEP revealed that even some of the super soldiers couldn’t handle the machines, some got horribly sick while others died while bleeding from the ears, nose, or mouth, sometimes all three. No testing was ever done on non-SEP participants and she’d rather not have a mess to clean to clean up if it all went wrong. She also didn’t have didn’t have much to work with, replicating the nanites would be difficult and she wanted to wait until she was sure they would work before attempting to do so.

“We’ve arrived Dr. Ziegler.” The agent’s hesitant voice came from the front.

She got out of the car as smoothly as she had entered it, leaving the agent with a small “Thank you.”

Her destination was a small diner on a corner. It usually buzzed with activity, but the recent assassination and EMP to the omnic city must’ve cleared foot traffic in the surrounding areas. The assassination bothered her, Gerard should’ve been back by now. He never hides out longer than 24 hours. She’d wait a while longer until she heard back before acting on it. 

The hostess led Angela to a booth. Once seated she pulled out the datapad once more, going over her notes on the nanites. The subject had to be someone who didn’t already have nanites in them, the two different machines could interact badly. Not jack then, or Genji. That left out a large amount of Talon agents in general. 

“Working hard as usual I see.”

Angela didn’t look up from her tablet as the older woman slid into the booth across the table from her. “You know, stress is bad for the complexion, wouldn’t want any wrinkles on that pretty face. As if that were something you had to worry about of course.” 

“What do you want, Ana?” The doctor’s glare was thin and sharp, if Amari was bothered by it, it didn’t show.

“Can’t an old woman spend time with an old friend? I’m getting on in years you know, have to take advantage of the time I have.” Ana’s smile was easy around her lips. Her age did nothing to mar her beauty, though Angela would disagree. 

Angela scoffed, laying down her tablet after putting it to sleep. A waitress came over then, all smiley and unaware of the conflct between the two in front of her. “What can I get you two?”

“A coffee, black please. “Angela’s voice was casual, but she didn’t take her eyes off Ana.

“And for you ma’am?” The waitress scribbled on her notepad. 

“Nothing for me, thank you.” 

The waitress left and Ana returned her smile to Angela, who was unamused with Ana’s nonchalance.” If you want to spend time old friends, why don’t you go see Reinhardt?” A pause, before tapping her tablet with her fingers in a show of boredom, “Or Gabriel?”

Ana laughed. “Finally figured out who’s been messing with you plans huh?”

“Mccree ran into him actually, on a recent mission.” It was unsurprising that Ana knew Gabriel and his team were alive. “Almost ruined everything.” Angela’s lips twitched for a moment, as if to frown. “I’m more concerned however, with how he knew Talon would be there in the first place.” She stared at Ana as if she’d find the answers she was looking for in her relaxed posture. 

“Ha, if I knew any of your plans believe me, I would not be sitting here with you.” The conversation paused as the waitress returned with Angela’s coffee. The doctor took a sip and set the mug down, then continued with her tablet. 

Angela tapped through profiles on her screen as Ana sat patiently, her lone eye looking out the window. The eyepatch took away from the symmetry of her face, a distraction. “You know, I could fix your eye, give you a better one.”

“So I could match with Mccree? I’m perfectly fine with my one eye, thank you.” Ana tilted her head, regarding Angela. “How is the cowboy doing?”

Angela shrugged. “He’s alive. His eyes work fine. He recently got off a mission.”

“And which mission is that? The one where Mondatta got assassinated, or the one in which there’s thousands of deactivated Omnics beneath our feet?” 

“Guess.” 

“Mccree’s no sniper. As good as he is with that revolver, you couldn’t keep him still long enough to wait for the right moment.” She answered her own question.

“Hmm.”

Ana shook her head. A long moment of silence passed over them in which the waitress came and refilled Angela’s mug twice. After a while, Ana’s staring got to Angela. “What?”

“You were such a sweet girl. What happened? What happened to the Angela who wanted to save the world?”

“I’m a doctor, my goal is to save lives. As it always has been. I’ve just realized you can’t win wars while pretending you’re the good guys.”

“You’re hardly doing any life-saving these days.”

“As if you’re any better. I’m sure you’ve taken more lives than I’ve had under my scalpel.”

“That’s different.” 

“Hardly.” 

Ana hummed under her breath, Angela could detect the tiniest bit of disappointment in Ana. She didn’t care. Ana’s opinion of Angela wasn’t anything to be concerned about. At the moment, she posed no threat to the doctor’s plans. It’d be a waste of Talon’s resources to go after her anyway. Ana never stayed in one place for too long and hardly left a trace when she disappeared. 

The elder woman sighed. “I’ve been here too long.”

“You have.” Angela knew what she meant. “You’d best get moving then.”

Ana stood up and moved out of the booth, “Take care of yourself Angela.” 

“I’m a doctor.”

“You know what I mean. You won’t stay young forever.” Ana laughed heartily and excused herself from the restaurant. 

Angela returned to her work. The background noise of the restaurant was welcome. Her office was too quiet and she wasn’t close to anyone from Talon, not interested in their friendship. The camaraderie of Overwatch was missed though, in that people were full of life. That was all she missed. 

She stopped scrolling on her tablet and paused on Mccree’s face. She mused through the notes she put in his file about his eyes. They can adjust all light situations, see through walls, track any target, hell he could see sound if he really wanted to. They were the first prosthetic eyes she’d ever made and she won’t remake them for anyone, they were too special.

The one thing his eyes didn’t have were their own store of nanites.

Pretty much everyone in Talon had the tiny machines injected in them at some point or another. They gave her reports on what happens to the agents on the field. Some allowed for minor regeneration.  
With the aid of the Caduceus staff, she could even bring people back to life if she’s fast enough. Those were just a few of the uses they had.

Mccree was the only one who didn’t. She could’ve done it when he was in recovery when he first got his new eyes. What she usually did when someone needed a new limb or other body part was inject a syringe that the nanites would enter the body through. It was easier to do when a prosthetic was attached to the body, the nanites would stay undetected in someone’s body and they could record information from inside, gathering stimuli or they could be released into the body for other uses. 

Mccree’s eyes were too small to store a large enough amount nanites to be efficient. But now he had a brand new, shiny arm that she hadn’t added the finishing touches too. He’s never been in contact with the tiny machines. He wasn’t an SEP soldier either, which was good because for all she knew that was why those soldiers had rejected the machines. He was the perfect subject. 

She smiled and tapped a button her screen, confirming him for testing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty much from this point on all chapters will be a single POV. The previous chapters were done with two POVs in order to establish the story and now I can focus on individual characters.  
> I'm really happy that I finally got to introduce Ana. She's one of my favorite characters in Overwatch in general (Widow is my all time fav, even though I can't play her for shit.)  
> Also I'm really sorry this chapter is so short. It's a bit of a place holder as the story transitions and also I felt that Mercy needed a chapter before things got really intense.  
> If anyone has questions shoot them to my tumblr at http://idontcareanymorethisisshit.tumblr.com/


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To avoid confusion: the large section of italic text is a flashback.

Hanamura was welcoming to Hanzo. He’d almost forgotten how much he missed the sound of his language, heard all around him. He lapsed easily into conversation with strangers, asking how the city had changed in the years he’d been gone. He was just a traveler who got homesick to these people. Back in Nepal he wore a more traditional attire, but it’d raise too many questions here, so instead he opted for a casual jacket and pants, which covered his cybernetic arm as well. His bow and quiver were strapped to his back in an instrument case. The plate covering the lower half of his face didn’t prompt any questioning however, some people just thought it was a new fashion of surgical mask. 

The mask did nothing to hide the smell of ramen shop. He remembered a rare occasion of sneaking out with his brother in the middle of the night. Hanzo never indulged Genji but Genji’s begging was unending. It wasn’t until Hanzo agreed that Genji finally quieted down and said he’d wait for Hanzo outside the castle grounds. Hanzo could’ve just been an ass and sent the guards to meet his brother in his place, but he didn’t. The smile on Genji’s face when he saw his elder brother was one that stuck with Hanzo for days to come.

_“Hanzo! For moment I was worried you weren’t going to come.” Genji laughed, slapping a hand on Hanzo’s shoulder._

_“I considered it.” Hanzo huffed in response, “but I also considered sending Oni after you as well.”_

_“Funny.” Genji’s easy smile slipped from his face when he saw the serious expression on his brother’s face. The omnic creeped Genji out, “You’re not joking.”_

_Hanzo smirked and turned away, gesturing his brother to come after him, “Let’s go before the omnic makes its rounds.”_

_Genji chased after Hanzo and the next thing the two knew they were racing. Hanzo was painfully competitive, but so was the younger sibling. They practically danced over rooftops, the night sky giving them cover should any of their father’s agents be on the lookout for Genji. Where Hanzo moved with practiced ease, Genji kept up with reckless abandon, his leaps were daring. At one point he tried to ram his shoulder into Hanzo to throw the elder brother off balance, but Hanzo back-stepped at the last second and Genji tripped over his own feet. In a beautifully disgraceful display, Genji landed face first on the roof._

_Hanzo stood over him haughtily, his arms crossed with a lopsided smile, “I think all the time you’ve spent partying has made you dull like an unsharpened blade.” It was partly an insult at Genji’s neglect of his swords, they sat sheathed in Genji’s bedroom._

_Genji rolled on to his back and glared up at his brother. “And your time spent training has made you slow!” He grabbed Hanzo’s ankle and pulled it out from under him, Hanzo landed spectacularly on his ass as Genji scrambled up and leapt off the rooftop, laughing like a maniac._

_Hanzo followed him off not too long after, Genji already safely inside the ramen shop. The older brother burned holes into the back at Genji’s head with his eyes for a minute before walking under the sign to the shop and slapping his brother upside the head._

_“Ow!” Genji rubbed the back of his head, glowering at Hanzo as he seated himself beside him. “How polite of you to join me brother.”_

_“I wouldn’t leave you to eat alone, what sort of brother would I be?” Hanzo didn’t meet Genji’s eyes as he spoke and proceeded to order his meal. “You should be more aware of your surroundings.”_

_“If I wanted a lecture I would’ve invited one of the elders.”_

_“Yet here I am.” Hanzo chuckled._

_Their meals were placed in front of them, the chef had a nervous look about him. Hanzo had a feeling that it was because he was there. Genji had been here to eat on a few occasions, he’d brought back food more than once. He frowned, he didn’t like making people nervous outside of his duties. A slight envy towards his brother sprouted in his gut._

_“It’s going to get cold.”_

_“Hmm?”_

_“Your food.” Genji pointed at Hanzo’s yet untouched ramen with his chopsticks._

_“Oh.” Hanzo picked up his chopsticks and started eating. They continued eating in almost complete silence._

_Genji broke it. “Good food.” He said around a mouthful of noodles._

_“Mmm,” Hanzo swallowed before he spoke, “better company.”_

The memory warmed Hanzo to the core, even with the cool air around him. He walked into the ramen shop and took some to go. Preferably he’d sit inside and eat, but that’d mean taking his mask off in public. The last thing he wanted to do was alarm people. His mechanical jaw wasn’t the most welcoming sight. 

Instead he seated himself on top of the restaurant, his back toward Shimada Castle. He faced the arcade. He slurped his noodles as he watched people go in and out from the building. There was many a time when he dragged his brother out of there because while their father didn’t care too much what Genji did, Hanzo was worried about Genji’s thumbs falling off if he stayed playing too long. 

Hanzo wished he allowed himself time to enjoy himself back in his youth. All the time spent training and making himself into the perfect heir broke the bond between the brothers. He cherished those moments with his brother so much. He couldn’t take it back, but he could visit his brother’s shrine. 

He finished his food and disposed of the trash. From where he stood on top of the roof he could easily see the opening to the castle. The castle still likely had guards but lethal force would be unnecessary. He briefly wondered if he could sneak in through one of his old routes. The perfect heir wasn’t always so perfect. 

He leapt from the roof of the ramen shop to the next and then down to the walkway that run past the opening of an alley into an entry point beside the doors that were closed shut. The fact that there wasn’t a guard posted there made him laugh. Somethings didn’t change. The opening revealed three guards placed on the balcony of the building near the bell. Two human, one…Oni. Hanzo swallowed a laugh and then stilled himself. He was in the open and the omnic was good at detecting movement. The other two were just people hired to watch the grounds. Easy.

Hanzo slowly creeped back to the edge of his platform, eyes on the omnic the whole time. Once it’s back was turned he slid off to the side and out of their eyesight. He moved behind the building where he was sure he wouldn’t be seen and crouched, pulling the case off his back. It opened with a soft click and out came his bow and quiver full of arrows. 

He clambered up the wall to the roof above the three guards. From here he could see a fourth patrolling around the bell. He shifted back and knocked an arrow. He muttered a silent apology to Oni before he launched an arrow through its chest. Maybe it could be repaired. 

This alerted the other two guards and Hanzo jumped off the roof and planted two cybernetic feet squarely on the shoulders on of one guard, using the momentum to fall forward and hit the other guard in the head with the bow. He landed, twisted around, and sprung forward to palm strike the guard he landed on in the face. With the two unconscious and the omnic down, he quickly spun around while getting another arrow ready, letting it free to destroy the phone in the fourth guard’s hand down below. 

Hanzo moved down to the last guard, an arrow pointed at him squarely in the face. The guard had his hands up in surrender, he was visibly shaking with fear. Poor thing. Hanzo lowered his bow, the tension left the other man just in time for Hanzo to elbow him in the face and knock him out. 

He moved on from there, carefully making his way to where the shrine would be. He ran to the end of a walkway leading to a balcony with a sizable gap between the two. Something nagged at Hanzo though, the stunning lack of security on the other side of the gap. He pushed it out of mind, few people were capable of making this jump. There wouldn’t be a need for guards here. 

Hanzo backed up a bit to give himself a running start. He sprinted and used the guard rail to spring himself higher further across the gap. For a moment it looked like he’d make it easy. Just a moment. He fell short a foot of grabbing the guard rail on the other side and his hand slipped off some of the wood supporting the balcony before finally catching a hold of the last one.

He breathed a heavy sigh of relief. What an embarrassing way that would’ve been to go. 

He climbed the rest of the way up and stepped into the shrine. The sight of the brother’s swords gave him pause. He hadn’t seen his own blade in so long. When Overwatch rescued him they left it at the scene and he was anything but eager to get it back. He acquired a bow instead.

He was about to move closer when he heard voices. He dropped down to the lower level and ran under the bridge leading to the courtyard. Those weren’t guards voices and that nagging feeling from earlier came back. Something wasn’t right. He strained to listen. 

“Ah, I’m sorry to hear Talon will longer be requiring our services anymore.” The polite voice of a cousin or other that probably wasn’t high enough in the family to matter until the majority were dead.

Talon? Hanzo could’ve sworn the Shimadas were gone, they must’ve been working with Talon in order to get an edge back. Desperate. What a shame.

“I’m sure you’re _so_ sorry.” A sarcastic voice replied in return. There was something painfully familiar to this voice though. Hanzo knew this person. Their voice is distorted slightly though, as if he were speaking through a mask or something. 

“Excuse me? I’d watch your tone. Whether we’re partners or not I’m sure your superiors would not appreciate to hear one of their agents spoke in such an unbecoming way.” Hanzo almost rolled his eyes. His family had so much pride even now. He would've been embarrassed if he still associated with them.

Laughter, it was menacing in a way but it stabbed Hanzo in the gut. It was like a voice from the dead. “My superiors? You haven’t caught on yet?” There was a sort of scraping sound, like a sword being unsheathed. Hanzo knew that sound well.

He could hear the woman take a step back. “What are you doing? The Shimadas-“

“Are dead.” An assassin clearly. “There is nothing left to this legacy except for you now.”

“B-but there-“

"Shhh", the assailant's voice was soft, "you won't be alone for long."

Hanzo could swear he heard the air move. There was the sound of a thump, the body hitting the ground and then the sword going back into the sheathe. He didn’t breathe, only knocked an arrow, held his bow at the ready. There was no way the assassin knew he was here. He could surprise him. All Hanzo had to do was wait until he turned around to leave and-

“You can come out now.”

Hanzo froze, then sighed. No point in trying to hide. He complied, running up the slanted wall and jumping on to the bridge. He kept the bow up, ready to fire in a moment’s notice. The assassin wasn’t even facing him, he was more concerned with the body he crouched in front of. Was he admiring the kill? He’d heard terrible things about Talon from his days in Overwatch, but if they had people who gloated over kills then the organization was worse than he thought. 

With his bow raised, Hanzo took careful steps forward, staring at the back of the head of the assassin. There was something strange about the assassin. He wore a yukata but he wore it loosely, not fitted the way it’s supposed to be. The left sleeve hung limply, the arm was free which exposed the prosthetic on the lower arm. Even from wear Hanzo was standing he could tell the obi was too close to the center. His stomach twisted in knots. He knew this style of dress all too well. He remembered how badly it used to annoy him.

Hanzo pulled the bow string back further, the arrow would surely go straight through him if he let it loose. “Who are you?” His brows knit together in frustration. He felt nauseous. 

The man rose and Hanzo could now see that the right arm that was in the sleeve was prosthetic and one of his legs were as well. The work of the cybernetics was oddly reminiscent of his own. He didn’t want to think about what that meant. 

Hanzo stepped forward and repeated himself, “Who are you?” 

The assassin’s hand went to the sword on his lower back slowly, he was making a spectacle of himself. “I was told there were only three Shimada left.” 

“Where are the other two?” It was easy to guess, but he wanted to be sure. 

A shrug. “I’m sure you’ll see them soon enough.” He turned quickly and deflected the arrow Hanzo aimed at him. With a dash the assassin was in front of Hanzo, the only thing that stopped the blade was Hanzo’s bow, raised in defense. 

Hanzo met eyes with a black visor and a green light where the assailant could see out of. His head was tilted down slightly, probably looking at Hanzo’s own prosthetic feet. Did he see how similar they were? The attacker's head rose sharply and Hanzo was sure they were locking eyes through the visor.

The other man seemed to tense up immediately. His entire demeanor changed and he jumped back. Hanzo lowered his bow in confusion. Why would he be scared? 

“Hanzo…”

It was barely a whisper. Hanzo wasn’t even sure he’d heard it. It tore at him. His own brother whispered his name the very same way before he died. 

The assassin raised a shaky hand, all the confidence and bravado from earlier gone. Every other part of him was like a statue. Hanzo hadn’t noticed it before, but his hair was dark and spikey. The shaky hand rested on the visor. Hanzo held his breath. There was no way it was him. It couldn’t be.

There was a click and the mask slowly moved away from the assassin’s face. 

There was Genji. His face wasn’t as youthful as it’d been ten years ago, but it was Genji all the same. It was the same narrow face and brown eyes. So much of him seemed the same yet different. Hanzo finally took a breath the as Genji dropped the mask. 

“Genji you…how…” Hanzo was at a loss for words. He was alive. Alive in front of him. 

“I could ask the same thing.” His voice was low and his eyes were wide with shock and disbelief. He backed away when Hanzo took a small step toward him. 

Hanzo reached a hand out toward his brother, wanting to see if this were real. Genji flinched back and Hanzo’s hand dropped. They stared at each other, the fact that they were both alive and they found each other here of all places. This couldn’t be real. It didn’t make sense. He swore he could remember Genji not breathing, his pool of blood growing under his own body.

Hanzo collapsed to his knees, his bow clattering loudly on the ground. He pulls his quiver off and tosses it to the side, not wanting to be armed at all in his brother’s presence. He bowed his head. “Genji…after all this time you….” He spoke loudly with a shaky voice. His shoulder wracked with silent sobs and he grit his teeth to keep anymore from coming out. “I can’t ask you to forgive.”

“Hanzo..” Footsteps approached Hanzo slowly, they stopped in front of him. 

Hanzo looked up at his brother and met a blank expression. He took a shuddering breath and stood up, leaving his bow and arrows on the ground. Genji furrowed his brows and moved as if to touch Hanzo before thinking better of it. 

“The mask…” 

“Oh.” Hanzo wasn’t ashamed of his face, but he was afraid of Genji’s reaction to it. What would he think of the damage he did? Hanzo removed the plate, exposing the mechanical half of his face. It skeletal in appearance, but black and shiny. Around the edges where the skin met metal it was all scarred from surgery. He didn’t have a tongue but instead had sensors that could detect taste. It took him so long to get used to talking without lips or a tongue. Angela’s careful work made it so that most mechanisms were hidden out of view. In place of a nose he had two triangle holes, similar to nostrils that filtered out scents. In truth, the doctor had made his sense of smell better than the average human. 

“How much more of you is like that?” Genji’s voice was low and his face was unreadable. 

Hanzo pushed his sleeve up on his left arm, showing the intricate machinery, synthetic muscle and armor plating that could be removed for cleaning. “As well as the lower half of my body.” 

Without being prompted, Genji shrugged his other arm out of the yukata. He turned his hands around and looked back to Hanzo’s now covered arm. Further inspection conformed Hanzo’s thoughts but he didn’t want to admit them. “My leg.” Genji moved the fabric of his yukata just enough to show his leg prosthetic. “And my entire chest.” He put a hand on the armor plating covering hsi torso.. “It’s…not my heart that beats here.” 

Hanzo swallowed thickly, his mouth ran dry. “I did this to you.”

“And I to you.” Genji seemed conflicted. Hanzo didn’t blame him. Neither of them had any idea the other was alive. It didn’t ease the guilt Hanzo felt. In fact, it made it worse. Genji had suffered with these injuries that his brother inflicted on him. How could anyone ask for forgiveness for something so unredeemable? 

“It seems we both have an angel watching over us.” Hanzo clicked his plate back into place. “I always wondered why she saved me. Me the one who – “

Genji interrupted him,” Stop. I don’t want to hear your self-pity. All I want right now are answers.” He turned to leave, picking up his visor and putting it back on as he pulled his sleeve back on.

Hanzo moved quickly and grabbed his brother by the arm. “You’re going back to Talon?”

“I said I need answers.” Genji snatched his arm away. “You,” he sighed, “if Dr. Ziegler saved you then you worked with Overwatch, making this more difficult than this already is. You can’t come with me. Someone could recognize you.”

Hanzo became more confused as Genji spoke. “What are you talking about?”

“I can’t explain this here. I have to go, my mission is done,” they both knew that was a lie. The last of the Shimadas still breathed. 

“Genji please.”

Genji retreated from Hanzo, not moving back toward the bridge but out the way Hanzo came so he wouldn’t have to come closer to his brother. “Don’t follow me Hanzo,” he stood on the railing of the balcony outside. Hanzo stopped in his tracks, determined not to lose sight of his brother. 

“You may not like the man I’ve become.” Genji stepped back and dropped. 

Hanzo remained where he was for an unknown amount of time. He was having a hard time believing what just happened. Genji was alive. Ziegler lied to both of them. Genji worked for Talon. 

Genji was alive. 

Hanzo all but dragged himself back to the shrine. The bloodied body of his distant cousin the only evidence of Genji having been there. He stared at corpse for a moment. What had his brother been doing, crouched over her like that? He seemed so content with the murder. That isn’t to say Hanzo hadn’t slain a number of the Shimada himself, under orders from Overwatch, like Genji for Talon.

It was too much. He kneeled in front of the shrine for the two brothers and bowed, allowing himself to cry for the first time in a very long time.


	8. Chapter 8

Amelie hissed in discomfort. She was trying to put pressure on her injured leg but every time she took a step pain shot through her. She glared down at the bandage covering the bullet hole. It could’ve been worse but that didn’t make her feel any better.

Gabriel entered the hotel room, a paper bag in the crook of his arm. “You should be laying down.”

“It’s hardly the first time I’ve been shot.”

“Yeah but you’re not exactly a super soldier either.” He put the bag down on nightstand and kneeled in front of where she sat on the edge of one of the beds.

“Don’t treat me like I’m fragile Gabriel.” Amelie glared at him as he unwrapped the bandages on her leg to change them. She was hardly shy about him touching her bare leg, if was the fact that he acted as if she couldn’t take care of herself that pissed her off. She pushed his hands away and swung her leg up on to the bed, taking the bandages off herself. “I don’t need you taking care of me.”

Gabriel sighed and turned over to lean back against the bed, grabbing the paper bag and pulling out the sandwich he’d gotten himself. He handed the bag up to her which she plucked from his fingers and placed it beside her. Amelie changed out her bandages, frowning the whole time. If she missed anything about Angela, it was the caduceus staff and its ability to heal just about anything within minutes.

Amelie pulled out the salad Gabriel had gotten her from the bag. She picked at it instead actually eating. “I’m worried about Lena.”

“So am I.”

Lena went missing the same day Mondatta was assassinated and the same day their mission failed. Since then, the team split up. Torbjorn went off to find Reinhardt and Fareeha went with him, seeing as her suit was not only damaged from the fight but it also hadn’t been working at all because of the EMP. There was so much going wrong and here Amelie was, stuck sitting here with a bullet hole in her leg eating a salad.

“I feel so useless.” She mumbled.

Gabriel discarded the remains of his sandwich and raised himself up to sit beside her. “Why?”

“Lena is missing, there’s a city of dead omnics beneath us, and I’m sure Talon will be coming after us. And we’re stuck hiding out because of me.” She pulled her uninjured leg up to her chest and buried her face in her arms. “So much is wrong. How are we going to fix everything?”

“There’s not much we could can do about the omnics, but,” he placed a hand on her shoulder, “we can find Lena. And we can deal with Talon.”

“How? How are we going to find Lena when we have no idea where she is? How do we know the assassin didn’t kill her too?”

“I don’t know but….” Gabriel wasn’t an optimist, Amelie knew that.

She put her hand over his, “I’m sorry Gabriel.”

He sighed and pulled his hand from under hers. “It’s fine. We’re under a lot of pressure.” He gets up, discards the remains of his food and moves over to the other bed. His boots come off and he reclines on the motel bed, an arm over his eyes. Amelie never thought that such mundane movements could look so exhausting.

Amelie tossed the container that held her salad into the garbage. She laid back after turning off the lamp on the nightstand between the two beds. In the dark she could make out Gabriel, lying still but not sleeping. Neither of them slept much anymore.

Gabriel had nightmares whenever he did fall asleep, she knew from the little hitches in his breath and the way he’d mumble. Sometimes it was names, the night she got shot he’d even said hers. Gabriel had so many ghosts following him, they couldn’t bother to leave him alone even at night.

Could it still be considered haunting though, if over half them were walking among him?

Amelie wondered what had happened before he came and rescued her, why he was covered in so much blood. It had to have been Jesse, Gabe did something to Jesse and it’s been messing with him. He didn’t kill him, Gabriel would’ve told her if he did.

She sighed and listened to his slowed breathing as he finally fell asleep. It’d be a while before she did. Gerard was lingering on her thoughts more than ever lately. What were the chances of him being alive with everyone else? Could he be out there, hiding somewhere? Or was he like Jesse, working with Talon?

The idea made her shiver and pull her blanket up over her head. Gerard would never work with Talon. His life’s work was to dismantle them. She remembered how triumphant he’d look after a successful sabotage, an assassination, or any operation against them. He’d gotten so close at one point. Gerard had held her tight and told her that he could feel it, it would be over soon. They would take a vacation afterwards.

Amelie laughed quietly to herself. The idea of vacation seemed so foreign at this point. When would they ever have time to relax? There didn’t seem to be an end to their problems. If they stayed in one place too long Gabriel got nervous. They were running out of hiding spots in England. Soon enough they’d have to leave.

But that meant leaving Lena behind if she’s still alive.

With a sigh, she got up and grabbed her crutches, hobbling over to the balcony. She wasn’t sleeping tonight and she was too wired to try. Her thoughts were buzzing into a storm, she hoped the night air would calm her.

Outside, it was chilly. She leaned against the railing, looking out over the city. There was a memorial for Mondatta going on a few miles away. She could see the lights in the distance, faintly hear the somber music. Amelie could swear she heard the citizens weeping too, omnics too if they could cry. There was talk of a statue being erected in Mondatta’s honor. If Lena turned out to be dead, would they do the same for her?

She shivered. The last thing she wanted to think about was her friend dying. If Lena was gone, Amelie would have a breakdown and there’d be no coming back from it.

Her hands gripped the cold stone of the railing until her knuckles turned white.

“Can’t sleep?” Gabriel’s voice came from behind her.

“No. I thought you were.” She turned her head to look at him. The darkness of the night made the circles under his eyes look black instead of purple.

“Tried to, tired of nightmares.” He joined her on the balcony, pulling out a cigar.

She wrinkled her nose, “You’re going to smoke yourself into an early grave at this rate.”

The flame from his lighter briefly lit up his face as he lit the cigar. “Ha, you almost sound like-” He cut himself off. “Wouldn’t matter anyway, I probably wouldn’t stay dead.”

She gave him a small smile. “There’s already enough ghosts out here Gabriel. We don’t need another one.” Amelie plucked the cigar from his lips and tossed it over the railing.

He sighed in defeat. They were silent for a moment before Gabriel spoke up, “We gotta move soon.”

“We can’t yet.”

“I know.”

Gabriel was staring at a fix point in the sky, his face was unmoving. Did he see the lights too? Or did he only see a failure?

Amelie looked at the scar on his arm from where a bullet had wounded him only weeks ago. What she would give to heal like that. She touched it lightly and Gabriel flinched at the contact but didn’t pull away. “What happened to Jesse?’ She murmured it, half hoping he wouldn’t hear but she knew he would anyway.

He recoiled from her and stared at a fix point in the sky. He chewed his lip and she regretted throwing his cigar away. He let a beat pass before answering.“Blew off his arm.”

“Merde.”

“Didn’t have a choice.” He pressed his forefinger and thumb into his eyes, as though he were pushing against a headache. “It was either that or let you die. He kept screaming at me, I didn’t even think about it.”

She reached out to him, but thought better of it. It was clear he needed his space. “You could’ve killed him.”

“I couldn’t.” He covered his mouth now before his hand dropped entirely. “I’ve killed traitors before, easy. But Jesse, I can’t. I fucking can’t.” He chewed his lip raw, she could see little droplets of blood forming. He paused and mumbled, “He’ll never forgive me.”

“Does that matter?”

“It shouldn’t.” He sighs, exasperated. “But it does.” A bitter laugh escapes him, borderline hysterical, “The fucking ingrate.”

She stayed beside him in silence, unsure of what to say. Gabriel’s shoulders drooped. They were both so tired.

“Thanks, for listening I guess.”

Amelie shrugged, “I guess I’m not entirely useless.”

“You’re not useless.” He pushed off the railing and turned around to lean on it, his head tipped back and eyes closed.  “You wanna talk about what’s on your mind?”

“You already know everything.” She’d spilled everything out to him a few times at this point. There wasn’t much left to say.

“Yeah. I haven’t exactly been supportive though. I’m not the only one struggling.”

She wrapped her arms tightly around herself. “You’ve never been the supportive friend Gabriel, if you started now, I’d be worried.”

That got a laugh out of him. How long had it been since she’d heard that? “Good point.”

Her leg was starting hurt from standing on it but she didn’t want to go back inside yet. The air was cool and the stars were bright and she could pretend, if only for a second, that everything was okay. The music was a little louder now.

Gabriel brought her back to reality. “You still think he’s out there?”

“Still think Jack is?”

“Yeah.”

She clasped her hands together, bringing them to her mouth. “If I find out my husband is alive, after all this time. . .I . . .if it came down to it, do you think you could kill Jack?”

“I don’t know. We’ve been at each other’s throats in the past, and yeah, we beat the shit of each before the explosion, but kill? Wouldn’t know until it came down to it.”

“But Jesse you’re sure about.”

“Let’s not talk about this again. Why’d you ask?”

“If Gerard’s alive and Talon took him, if he’s working with them…” her voice lowered to a hushed tone, “I don’t know if I’d have it in me to kill him. God, or even hurt him.”

“It’s a big ‘if’ Amelie.” One of his hands rested on her shoulder and she grabbed it for stability. “He’s been gone for years.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” All of this at once. It was almost funny how quickly things could change. Amelie didn’t like uncertainty. Chances and what-if’s. She couldn’t stand not having all the answers while the enemy did. Gabriel probably felt the same. She leaned her weight into him to take the pressure off her leg.

“Is it hurting?”

Amelie nodded but she didn’t want to go back to bed just yet. She wasn’t tired yet. Probably wouldn’t be for a while. She could still hear the people below. Little dots of light lit up as people carried candles in the street. Pretty despite the reality.

Gabriel opened his eyes and stared at the stars above them. Maybe he was thinking about better times. She noticed he’d gotten into a habit of reminiscing more and more. Another of his bad habits.

“Gabriel?”

"Yeah?"�

"Help me back inside."�

Gabriel put an arm around her waist and she threw her arm over his shoulders. Her crutches were left abandoned against the railing outside. Inside she could still hear the music and crying but it was faded. He let go of her and she eased herself on to the bed. She gave him a small thank you as he meandered back over to his bed.

Getting Gabriel to open up clearly helped as not ten minutes after he laid back down she heard gentle breathing. There was a hitch or so in his breath but other than that, it was the most peaceful sleep she'd heard from in some time. She laughed quietly in jealously.

\----

In the morning, the news finally reported Lena's disappearance. The two of them ate breakfast in silence.

They'd get through this. They had to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slow chapter but these two needed this.
> 
> Also, sorry for how late this is. Life's been crazy and my laptop died a while back but now I have a new computer and I'm somewhat put together now so hopefully I can get a decent schedule.
> 
> Any questions or anything send them to my tumblr : https://www.tumblr.com/blog/idontcareanymorethisisshit


	9. Chapter 9

Lena took a sharp breath and immediately groaned in pain. Breathing hurt and her mouth tasted like copper. She breathed slower, trying to recall everything that happened It was starting to come back to her, the event, Mondatta, the assassin…

She shot up before crying out and easing herself back down on to the bed. That's right, the assassin shot her after killing Mondatta. But he'd missed after getting hit by. . .something. Whatever it was, she owed her life to it.

There rumors back in the day, toward the end of Overwatch, about an assassin from Talon. Supposedly the one that took down Ana but no one ever got a look at who it was. But that was years ago, there's no way this could be the same person. Talon maybe, but it being the same killer was a long shot.

Her eyes squeezed shut as she remembered the featureless helmet. That's good nightmare fuel for a few weeks. A faceless murderer who can somehow keep up with her and while having inhuman strength. It's not as if she hasn't seen super humans before, between Gabriel Reyes and Jack Morrison were prime examples, but seeing them on the enemy side was bone chilling. It also didn't make sense as the SEP program was shut down and all soldiers involved were accounted for. 

Lena gasped and her hands flew to her chest. Her accelerator wasn’t on her but she still had her form so it had to be nearby. She couldn’t panic right now, every sharp breath caused an intense pain in her ribs. She didn’t want to think about what it looked like. Right now, she needed to focus.

She scanned the room. Completely unfamiliar. It was a bedroom. The walls were cold metal and there were little adornments in the room. A picture frame depicting an omnic and a human man. The air was stale and dry and uncomfortably warm. The omnic city? It was quiet too. She didn’t like that.

First, she had to find her accelerator. Then she had to find a way out. The Omnic city was huge and she had no idea how deep she was.

With steady hands, she began to slowly push herself off the bed. “Easy now, that’s it,” she muttered to herself. She was pretty sore as well. Carefully, she swung her legs off the bed and was just about to stand up when the door opened.

She tried to blink back into the bed but forgot her device wasn’t on her. Instead she froze in place and the door widened and an omnic walked in with her device in hand. Eight orbs floated around his head and one of them pinged before glowing in a golden color and flying over to her. Lena flinched at it but was met with a wash of calmness. Some of her pain eased as well and she sank back into the bed.

The omnic approached her, his mechanical voice soothing, “I didn’t expect you to be awake just yet. How do you feel?”

Lena blinked at him, not sure how to answer. He stood over her, head tilted patiently. Another glance over made her realize he wasn’t standing, but floating. He wore clothes in the same fashion as Shambali monks.

“You’re one the shambali right?” She asked quietly. Her hands covered he face in shame.

“Yes but- “

“I’m so sorry, I couldn’t stop him, it’s all my fault,” her words came out in a rush and another sharp inhale caused more pain in her chest.

He placed a gentle hand on her forehead, “Don't blame yourself."

A sob made its way out of her. “But I couldn’t stop it. He’s gone and I couldn’t protect him.”

The omnic sat on the edge on the bed, “It wasn’t your job to protect him.”

“I’m supposed to protect everyone,” she rolled over and grimaced in pain. “I’m supposed to be a hero.”

“You did all you could.”

“What does that matter? I almost died.”

“But you didn’t. You’re still here. You failed this once yes, but you can still go on, there are more people that need you.”

Lena turned over to lay on her back. The omnic was looking at her with one of those patient head tilts. She sighed. “Guess you’re right…”

He nodded and then held the chronal accelerator out to her, “The strap was damaged from where you got shot, I repaired it for you.”

She took it from him and held it, the strap was stitched together. If only that fixed everything else that was wrong with it. “Thank you um…”

“Zenyatta.”

“Lena, it’s nice to meet you.”

“You as well.” He rose with that, just as the door opened again to reveal another omnic. She beckoned Zenyatta close and whispered to him. Lena furrowed her brows, curious as to what was so important that she couldn’t hear it.

Zenyatta nodded to the other omnic and the door closed again. He turned around and Lena was staring at him expectantly. “Is there…something I need to know?” She asks her question quietly, still unsure of the entire situation.

He crossed his legs and was floating in the air again. “It’s someone, you have to see.” The first bit of hesitation she heard from him. He avoided her gaze.

Lena frowned and sat up slowly. “Who?”

He raised his hand, “Come and see, he has a mild concussion so I’ve forbidden him from walking.”

Zenyatta assisted her as she got off the bed. The golden orb bobbed along on its tether. Lena was fascinated with the thing but kept focus as Zenyatta lead her through the house. It was small and accommodations were made for humans that stayed in it as well. There was a cramped kitchen and the living room had a rundown couch and a coffee table with stains on it.

The omnic from the door was sat on the couch. Her posture sagged, as though sad. Lena whispered to Zenyatta, “What’s wrong with her?”

Zenyatta paused and went rigid. “There was an incident the same night you got hurt.”

“It was more than that.” The omnic stood with her fists balled. “It was genocide.”

“What?” Lena balked.

Zenyatta hovered over to the other, placing his hand on her shoulder. “We’re all shaken by what happened.”

“Don’t give me that.” The omnic shoved Zenyatta’s hand off. “I respect the Shambali, Zenyatta, but that perfect world you live in on Nepal is a myth to every one of us here.”

“I don’t wanna interrupt but…” Lena interjected and the female omnic’s head whipped toward her, causing Lena to take a step back, “what happened?”

The omnic crossed her arms, “Like I said, genocide. An EMP was released down here two nights ago, same night you got shot and Mondatta was assassinated.” She shrugged and dropped her arms, “My partner and I weren’t here when it happened, we were at the rally.” Her voice shook with anger, “Some hero you turned out to be, lost a lot of friends tonight and you didn't do shit about it.”

Lena shrunk back. A genocide at the same time of the assassination. The perfect distraction. Gabriel and the rest of them should've stopped it. 

“And the only thing stopping me from strangling that piece of shit in the closet, is you.” The omnic jabbed a finger into Zenyatta’s chest. “If I didn’t respect you so much, that murderer would be dead.” She pushed past him and out of the house, the door sliding shut behind her.

Zenyatta bowed his head, somber. “Forgive her, she’s been through . . . a lot recently, we all have.”

Lena’s voice was small, still reeling from the omnic’s taunts. The orb did little ease the pain of it. “Who…who’s the murderer?”

Zenyatta gestured to the supply closet, “See for yourself.”

She approached the door, stopping just before turning the doorknob, “Why is he…?”

“He insisted to remain in there.”

Lena nodded, not understanding but figuring it’d be answered in a minute or so anyway. She turned the doorknob slowly and opened the door. It wasn’t a large room but it wasn’t terribly small either. There were shelves with tools on them and a desk against the far wall. It was dark, the EMP must’ve taken out all the power as well. Her chronal accelerator gave off a dim glow.

She strapped on the device, it was a murderer she was about to meet after all.

The darkness of the room made it hard for her to make out the shape in the corner. A few steps closer and the glow illuminated him just enough that she could further inspect the figure. It was a man. He had chin length, dark hair, a lean build, pale skin – that might’ve just been the glow making him paler though. His head raises just enough that she can make out a narrow face with deep brown eyes.

It was a face she hadn’t seen for years and time certainly hadn’t been kind to him.

Gerard Lacroix was staring at her. Gerard Lacroix was sitting in a corner in a dark room in the omnic city. Gerard Lacroix was alive. Gerard Lacroix was sitting, hunched over, with a smooth silver helmet beside him.

Lena was stunned for a moment, not able to move. Gerard’s eyes widened, she noticed there were bags underneath them, deeply purple – again, the lightning probably made them worse. He raised up slowly, using the wall to push himself up. One of his hands moved,  reaching for her and Lena screamed and blinked out of the room.

Zenyatta was there instantly, trying to calm Lena down as she paced in circles and rambled almost unintelligibly.

“Lena…”

“Gerard Lacroix!” She frantically paced and blinked back and forth, her chronal accelerator whined with the effort. “Gerard Lacroix is alive! He’s alive and- and- he’s an assassin!” Her hands ran through her hair frantically as she tried to make sense of what she just saw. “Gerard is an assassin for whatever reason and he killed Mondatta Oh my god oh my God oh my God!” Her words jumbled together. Her device stopped working mid-blink and she tripped over her own feet and landed first face.

“Oh!” Zenyatta met her on the ground. “Lena, you need to calm down.”

She found herself in a lot of pain, the shock of the fall racked her and made it hard for her to breathe. She rolled on to her back and sucked in air. There was a chance she was having a panic attack too from the way she was hyperventilating. She squeezed her eyes shut and counted slowly. Zenyatta was right, she had to calm down.

When she opened her eyes, Zenyatta was laying down beside her with his hands folded neatly on his stomach. Her arms flopped to her sides. She was still hurting. Breathing still hurt. Gerard was alive.

“Gerard Lacroix is alive and he tried to kill me.” She whispered it.

“There’s more to it than you think.”

Lena laughed and then groaned in pain. “What else is there? He’s been missing for years and I find him in the worst possible way. What am I going to tell Amelie?”

“Perhaps you should do that with him.”

“Are you nuts? I can’t bring him to them. He’d tell all of Talon.”

Zenyatta shook his head. “He couldn’t.”

“What?”

“He can’t-”

Lena sat up just as Gerard exited the supply room. She immediately scrambled back on to her feet, wincing and nearly falling over. Gerard clutched the side of his head as though he had a headache, Zenyatta did mention a concussion. That was fine with her. If she had to fight him, it’d make it a little easier.

 Gerard didn’t move from where he stood, which confused Lena. Shouldn’t he be trying to kill her?

Zenyatta hovered between the two of them as a buffer that she greatly appreciated but also worried about. She couldn’t fail to protect another person if something happened. Gerard was making a frustrated face.

“Zenyatta move behind me, he’s dangerous.” She tried to blink in front of him but only cried out in pain and crumpled. The orb pinged above her and a warmth spread through her. She kneeled on the ground. A pair on cool metal hands were on her and someone else’s feet were in front of her.

“Get away from me,” she hissed through clenched teeth.

The feet backed out of her vision and she glared up at him. He was frowning. It made her seethe with anger.

With Zenyatta’s support she stood up. Gerard was still holding the side of his head. He made it out perfectly fine other than that concussion that she didn’t even cause.

“You’re a murderer.” She spat the words out at him. He shook his head. “You killed Mondatta, tried to kill me. You’ve been gone for all this time, we thought you were dead.” He shook his head again. “You left Amelie alone.” He took his head in both hands and started pacing. “You left all of us, and this whole time, this whole damn time, you’ve been- doing this!” His hands ran through his hair frantically. “Stop pacing and look at me!”

Gerard stopped, he massaged the side of his neck harshly.

“Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” She needed to hear it from him. Some explanation or a big reveal that he was with the enemy the whole time. Anything.

Gerard only gestured helplessly to Zenyatta. Lena looked at her acquaintance who slowly released her to stand beside her. 

“He can’t speak.”

“What do you mean he can’t….’ Lena blinked at him. Gerard took careful steps toward her. He held up a hand in an incredibly nonthreatening gesture. She furrowed her brows and Zenyatta took her hand and lightly guided it into Gerard’s. The assassin held it tentatively, giving her the chance to pull away if she needed to. With his free hand, he pulled down the collar of his shirt, bringing up Lena’s so she could feel the scars on his throat.

Lena bravely moved closer to him to get a better look. They were pale with age, more than there should’ve been, as if someone was leaving a mark.

Her hand dropped and she moved away. “Who did this to you?” Gerard made a claw gesture with his hand, Talon. “Why?” He shrugged. She was afraid to ask anymore but she needed to know his story. “Tell me what happened.”

Zenyatta provided Gerard with a notebook. Lena would ask questions, he’d answer. It was a process. Over ten years of Gerard’s absence finally being filled in. She didn’t disclose anything as she didn’t fully trust him. The two sat across from each other on the floor by the coffee table, passing the notebook back and forth.

Lena sat on the information for a minute before responding. “You’re…a puppet.”

Gerard’s face screwed up at that and he shook his head. He pointed to the notebook.

“Oh, Husk. Right.” It was a lot to absorb. “After all this time, I can’t believe they…brainwashed you.” She stared at his neck, remembering the feeling of the scars. “I don’t under why she took your voice though.”

Gerard shrugged and wrote: _No point in being able to speak when all you do is take orders. Maybe she got tired of the screaming._

Lena winced at that. The torture he was forced to endure, she couldn’t imagine it. Gabriel had told stories of the SEP program, the pain and sickness they went through. It was as if Mercy recreated it, amped it up to ten, and took away the voluntary part. He was faster than any SEP soldier and inhumanly strong. Gerard couldn’t explain the reprograming, that was all surgical and he had to be asleep for it. He mentioned that Mercy determined it’d be too traumatic to keep him awake for it. The smallest mercy she’d ever grant.

She'd essentially made the perfect soldier, except soldiers had a voice and could challenge commands.

“So Zenyatta,” the monk, who’d been quietly sitting to the side, allowing the two to have their conversation in peace, raised his head from his mediation, “any idea why your orb thing uh, ‘woke’ him up?” Lena leaned back on her hands, feeling slightly less tense than earlier.

The orbs chimed around Zenyatta as they rotated. “Normally the orb of discord, the one that gave you a concussion,” he gestured to Gerard which caused a golden orb to fly toward him, “forgive me for that, confuses people, allowing either escape or for me take out any foes. Perhaps it confused your alter ego, the Husk, and as a result, reverted to you.”

“So, it fried his programming?” Lena asked, her head swiveling hopefully toward Gerard. “Thinks it’s permanent?”

Gerard shook his head and wrote down: _It’s never permanent. I always go back to sleep. This is just the longest it’s lasted._

Lena jumped up, eyes gleaming. “Well! Maybe we can make it permanent. We’ll go find Gabriel and we’ll figure this out!” Her heart thudded with excitement. They could fix this. “Imagine what Amelie will think!”

A hand on her shoulder stopped her rambling. The notebook was in her face: _Too risky._

“No but- “

Gerard was turned around, heading back into the supply room. He returned with his helmet under one arm and the notebook under the other.

Lena blinked in front of him and grabbed him by the arms, “Are you leaving?” She got a nod in response. “What? No!” He pushed her hands off with a somber smile. She watched him give the notebook back to Zenyatta and, while her knowledge of sign language was limited she understood: _thank you._ It was her turn to shake her head.

He signed to Zenyatta and the monk translated, “He has to go back before Talon comes looking.” Gerard slipped his helmet back on to his head. He approached Lena, stopping just a foot from her, he lifted his mask with his thumb just enough to reveal his mouth, he formed the words: _Don’t tell Amelie._

The helmet fell back into place and he walked to the door, just as his head sharply rose enough that Lena thought it was one of the twitches he told her about, that he was about to turn back into the Husk. Instead, he turned his head slightly and signed to Zenyatta once more before leaving, the door shut behind him.

Lena was left with her mouth hanging over. She blinked over to Zenyatta, frantic. “What did he say?”

“He said to watch out, the Husk will remember that he missed your head.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys went without a chapter for so long that I'm uploading this one right away. The next chapter will most likely be next week though.
> 
> I really enjoyed writing this chapter. I love Gerard so much. Also sorry if the way I portray Zenyatta is crappy, he's hard to write for me for some reason. 
> 
> Any questions or if you just wanna talk to my, send them to my tumblr at: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/idontcareanymorethisisshit


	10. Chapter 10

Genji sat completely still in the transport. It was dark except for his visor creating a soft glow. His sword rested at an angle on his shoulder, the end of it caught in the crook of his knee. It was dead silent other than the hum of the engines. The autopilot carried him as well as the bodies of the pilot and two accompanying guards back to their base. They weren't far now, just a little longer.

His impatience caused a thrumming under his skin. He felt it like an energy waiting to be released. His dragon was furious as he was. As soon as the ship was put on autopilot he felt his companion cry out for blood and Genji certainly wasn't objecting to sating it. This organization lied to him so they could use him. Taking out his frustration on a few of them didn't really bother him.

He tapped his sword, tipped his head back against the wall, and sighed. His brother was alive. He didn't know what to do with that information. Even still that uncertainty turmoiled in him. Hanzo had fallen to his knees and said he couldn't ask for forgiveness. Genji didn't even think he himself was capable of forgiveness. Or even loving his brother. But he found he couldn't hate him either.

The lower half of Hanzo's face haunted him. He remembered slashing it, the bloody scream that left his brother's mouth and the way it just hung, all blood and broken fragments. Mercy truly was a miracle worker, seeing how Hanzo's entire bottom half was destroyed. Genji's hand dropped from his sword as he remembered how his sword tore through his brother's guts. He felt sick and the stench of blood from the corpses wasn't helping.

A mechanical voice from above him announced his arrival.

The transport landed inside the hangar and Genji was greeted by two agents.

He disappeared before the alarms went off.

Stealth was hardly on his mind as he tore through the hallways of Talon. Bullets flew and he barely noticed them as they whizzed past his visor. All he felt was the burning of his dragon exploding from his skin. This was easy, killing, instead of thinking. All he saw were liars, much like his family. He wondered how many of them knew the truth but that hardly mattered when he suddenly found himself in front of Ziegler's lab.

The door slid open much too slowly for his liking. He shouted, "Ziegler!" sword raised and his dragon glowing vibrantly beside him, her body curling around him protectively.

Mercy stood with her back to the door, bent over what looked to be a new arm for Mccree, seemingly unperturbed by the interruption. "Something wrong, Genji?"

Mccree, on the other hand, was very disturbed by the sight of Genji, poised to attack.

Genji scowled behind his mask, seething with how she was remained completely unbothered by his obvious anger. "My brother is alive." He spat the words out and moved toward her.

Mccree froze and Mercy straightened up, sighing. She removed her gloves and turned to him, the presence of his dragon not affecting her at all. "Hanzo?"

"Don't sound so surprised doctor,"he growled, "How could I not recognize your work?"

Mercy's hands went into her pockets, completely nonchalant. "I've always wondered if you two would ever run into each other. Shame I wasn't there." She shrugged and looked away from Genji, dragging her eyes over Mccree's arm, as if annoyed that he was keeping her from her work.

"You lied to me!" He closed the distance between them, the blade going up to her neck. She stared him down through the visor. "You told me he died from his injuries, that I killed him." There was that sick feeling again. "You manipulated me."

"Now what?" She tilted her hand, "You're going to kill me? Get revenge?"

"Yes." He moved to strike and- 

He couldn't move. His body was frozen in place. The dragon vanished from sight but he stuck still, holding his blade up but not being able to move. Ziegler moved away from him, one of her hands up and clenched.

"What have you-"

"Shh." She silenced him with the small sound, a finger to her lip and his voice was gone. "How ungrateful. I save your life and this is how you repay me."

"Whoa now, Angela, what's going on?" Mccree started to move off his bed and then slumped back suddenly as a result of Mercy snapping her fingers.

The doctor sighed and shook her head. "After everything I've done for you Genji." She raised a hand to him and if he could move he would've flinched. She clicked his mask off to get a look at the scowling face. "So angry. What a shame." She turned her head to Mccree, "And now I'll have to make sure he doesn't remember this. What a mess you've made Genji."

Behind him her heard footsteps running toward them. He tried to move, to even flex a toe but he couldn't. Everything in his body was frozen. No control what so ever. Was this what she meant by her greatest work? The total control of his body? He would've screamed if he could.

She looked past him to the hallway and frowned. "Can't have anyone seeing you like this, can't have my little secret get out." He heard his mask clatter to the ground as she dropped it. Her hand raised once again and sharply lowered itself, forcing him to the ground in a single motion that caused intense pain to radiate through his body.

He briefly heard Jack Morrison's voice before everything went black.

\-----

Genji woke up with a shout. Everything hurt. It was stiff pain, whether it was from being unconscious on an uncomfortable concrete floor for an indefinite amount of time, or from Mercy taking control of his body he wasn't sure.

One thing he knew for sure was that he was absolutely terrified of Angela Ziegler in that moment. No one should have that kind of power.

He took a few deep breaths and looked around. A cell. Concrete floors and walls and a clear door that faced another plain concrete hallway. A vent on the ceiling, far too small to crawl into. No furnishings. They've imprisoned him. Probably until Ziegler figures out a way to deal with him now that he knows her secret. No doubt he was being watched.

He sighed and sat against a wall, finding his visor beside him, he put it on. Somehow it made him feel more secure. That, and knowing that he had one advantage over Angela. One thing to use against her. He wasn't sure how to start on planning his escape.

What a shit situation this was.

There was a jangling sound of spurs coming down the hallway and Genji scowled under his mask. The cowboy. He refused to make eye contact when Mccree appeared, preferring to stare at the blank wall in front of him.

"Howdy Genji." Mccree drawled, Genji could see him lean on the glass out the corner of his eye. "Everythin's a little fuzzy for me right now, I remember you busting into the infirmary and then everything from there is black. Woke up and the only thing Angela would tell me was that you were locked up. Would you care to-"

"Hanzo's alive."

Mccree coughed and Genji stared at the metal hand he now sported. He couldn't find it in himself to care enough to ask what happened. The gunslinger continued on, "Ah yeah, I remember that bit but-"

"Did you know?"

"Pardon?"

Genji stood up and walked up to the glass, "Did you know he was alive?"

"I-"

"You were in Overwatch with Jack Morrison, when I spoke to my brother, I figured out he worked with Overwatch as well, she gave him her Mercy." He planted both his hands on the glass. "Did you know him? Did Morrison?"

Mccree, cursed under his breath. "Shit. Yeah, secret's out now I guess."

Genji laughed and moved away from the glass, sitting back down in the same spot as before. "Once I get out of here, the two of you should run. After I'm done with Mercy, I'll come for you."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is late as shit and honestly my only excuse is I've depressed and haven't slept more than fours in weeks. Also this chapter is subject to some edits, I'm not too happy with it but I can't think of how to change it right now.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this is my first Overwatch fic and I already hate myself for this. If there's any questions feel free to shoot them to my tumblr http://idontcareanymorethisisshit.tumblr.com/ I don't know what else to put here. I don't know if I want to put ships in this or not because it could just be a cheap way to add complication to the story, I don't know I'll figure it out as I go I guess. Thanks for giving me a chance!


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